


Hide Me Quiet (I Don't Wanna Know)

by excentrykemuse



Category: The Man in the High Castle (TV)
Genre: Assassination, Dimension Travel, F/M, Nazis, Racism, Torture, assassination attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 07:55:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 63,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16280630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/excentrykemuse/pseuds/excentrykemuse
Summary: Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had never loved until he met Juliana Crain—and then her life was constantly threatened by the Resistance.  So, he sent her the only place he could to keep her safe: to the Greater Nazi Reich and, more specifically, to Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith.Previously titled "I don't wanna know."





	1. Part the First

**Author's Note:**

> WRITTEN: 01-06 October 2018 (woo-hoo! I am so totally epic! Season 3 debuted 05 October and I watched episode one halfway through ch 14 which had the scene with Takeshi Kido talking to the operative about having a Japanese father and white mother: it was hilarious!)
> 
> PAIRING(S): Juliana/Takeshi Kido, (one sided) Juliana/John Smith, (very slight) Juliana/Joe Blake

**Part the First—**  
_“I am not afraid anymore / Standing in the eye of the Storm / Ready to face this, Dying to taste this, Sick sweet warmth”_  
**—“Not Afraid Anymore,” Halsey**

She was sitting by the side of the road, her long dark hair pulled behind her ears, her Aryan blue eyes shining out as she looked at him. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido took her in, how she sat with poise despite the fact that she was on the edge of the Neutral Zone, having been held up by custom officials, and the familiar lust overtook him.

At first it was a simple matter. She did not have the proper papers to leave the Japanese Pacific States. He wondered why she wouldn’t tell him of her expedition, not even with a phone call. It would have been put through. His secretary knew that when Miss Crain called, which had only been five times in the past two years of their affair, that he should put her through immediately.

Unfortunately, she had now become something of more—someone of interest to the kempeitai.

On a routine sweep, someone had brought it to Chief Inspector Kido’s attention that a Frank Frink was a Semite. Chief Inspector Kido did not care for such racial distinctions among the white man. However, as allies of the Greater Nazi Reich, the Japanese Empire fell in line with their racial beliefs. While they did not exterminate the negroes or the Jews, they encouraged them to leave for the Neutral Zone and tortured them when they simply wouldn’t keep their heads down.

Well, they made an example of Frank Frink.

It might have been an extra motivation that her family believed that he would one day be Juliana’s husband. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was not a jealous man, but he was a possessive one. Of course, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido understood her need to have a boyfriend if not a husband so that her family would not ask questions. From what she told him they were currently trying to “set her up” with someone suitable. That, however, did not mean he had to be pleased about it.

And didn’t Frank Frink just have the most interesting information?

Trudy Walker, a known member of the Resistance, had been carrying one of the famed films before she was shot in the street. She had passed it to her half-sister Juliana Crain, who had disappeared to the Neutral Zone. Now, it would appear, everyone wanted Juliana Crain—or rather the film she had in her possession.

It was Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido who had her—and he intended to use her for information before taking her back to his bed.

There was a small office that he was given. There was no Fung Shui or elegance to it, just a serviceable table, two chairs, and a recording device that a subordinate brought to him. 

Juliana Crain was brought before him in her suit, so Western, a thick material, utterly suitable for a trip into Colorado, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido thought. She was obviously a sensible girl, at least on the surface, given her ill-advised trip. Prettier than most of the colonized. Yes, he mentally agreed with himself, certainly prettier. He had always thought so since she had first caught his attention on the streets of San Francisco. Juliana Crain had a certain charm to the way her eyes shone out of her face that his wife’s eyes did not possess.

He mentally shook himself. Such thoughts were beneath him when he must interrogate Juliana, the girl he called Misaki-chan when he was making love to her.

Flipping on the recording machine, his eyes flicked to the film cannister between them.

Her eyes followed his and he noticed that she convulsively swallowed. At least she realized he was interviewing her in an official capacity and that this was potentially serious.

“Let us begin with the basics,” he suggested in his crisp, Japanese accented English. “What is your name?”

“Juliana Crain,” she stated firmly. 

“How did you come into possession of this film cannister?”

“Trudy,” she whispered, glancing down again. She cleared her throat and looked at him directly, holding his gaze. “My sister Trudy gave it to me before she was shot. I—I was afraid of being shot myself.”

He made a note in her file. “Why did you not hand it into the authorities?” To me?

“I thought you would shoot me,” she elaborated. “No, I thought I would take it to the Neutral Zone and—get rid of it. It wasn’t safe here in the Pacific States. I wasn’t safe here.” There had been the bombing in the tea shop and then she had had to be moved from the apartment he kept for her to the military protected facility because the Resistance hated ‘race traitors,’ as they called them. Juliana hadn’t been safe since the first time she had smiled at him in the herbal tea shop. “If it could get Trudy shot just for having it—what about me?” Juliana moved her hands restlessly in her lap and he noticed that she seemed like a bird trapped in a cage, flapping its wings, trying to get out yet knowing that it would never get through the bars closing around it. “Not everyone knows who I am, recognizes me, Chief Inspector.”

He ignored her last statement. “You are aware,” he stated carefully, “that you are being watched.”

Her eyes flicked up and he looked at her dispassionately.

“There has been chatter on the wires from the Resistance,” he stated carefully, his Japanese eyes looking out through his spectacles. “You are not safe with your parents’ association with a Mr. Frank Frink. His sister and her children were exterminated for being Jews and from what I understand—he blames you although he and then, by extension, they were targeted through a sweep that was initially random.”

“Laura,” she gasped, “and the kids are dead?”

“That is not the point, Miss Crain,” he replied harshly, though his voice was modulated to seem calm and cool. “The kempeitai appreciates that you surrendered the film as soon as we requested it, although we wish you had been more—forthcoming.”

She bowed her head in submission.

“Have you watched it?”

“No, Chief Inspector,” she answered quietly. “I would never presume—”

Odd, he thought. The traitor Frank Frink claimed that she had, but he had never described it himself. He might have been embellishing his story to gain favor, perhaps, when he finally broke and admitted where Juliana had gone—although, at that point, they had already had her in custody.

Then again, as his mistress, Juliana was very well aware that she should never watch that film, let alone be in possession of it.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido took her in for a long moment, marveling at her hair that was neither auburn nor brown—a color as rare among the white man as the Japanese—her startling blue eyes—her strong jaw—Although he was not a passionate man or one taken to lust, Juliana Crain had always raised such emotions in him. Not even his perfect Japanese wife could and she was the epitome of Japanese grace. While high officials, such as himself, often had mistresses a ‘nieces’, as they were called, they were almost exclusively Japanese, and they caused comment if they were of the white man. She had caused comment in certain circles although they had been very discreet.

He tilted his head, imagining the line of her neck bared to his lips. No, he was not a passionate man, but he could appreciate Juliana Crain.

Nor was he sentimental. Still, he would hate to leave her to the hands of the Resistance. 

“Although it is rare,” he admitted, “I would offer you relocation. I fear that the Resistance would still find you. They have found you before and now they want you for this film. We are of the opinion that they believe you stole it, killed Trudy Walker, and perhaps meant to give it to the kempeitai given your association with certain individuals.—Are you attached to the Pacific States, Miss Crain?”

It was an interesting question. She was clearly fond of him, choosing to stroke his face and kiss him when she was not required to. However, that did not mean that she did not do it for the well appointed apartment he gave her or the clothes and cosmetics she could afford at his pleasure.

She looked at him, entirely startled. “Chief Inspector?”

“Applying for a visa or asylum is too obvious,” he told her, not looking at her. “They’ll still find you. The Resistance has ways of finding out information. I must ask you to be completely candid with me. If I send you to the American Reich, will you seek to be a productive member of their society or will you be subversive?”

She looked down at her lap and took several deep breaths. “I don’t understand you.” When he made to explain it to her again, she continued, “I understand, I just don’t comprehend your reasoning.” Looking to her side, she asked quietly, “Why?”

“There are death threats on the wire,” he finally admitted. “It is believed you killed your sister for the film and not—the authorities—as I’ve explained. I do not take these threats lightly, Miss Crain.” His eyes begged her to understand the severity of what was happening. 

Juliana Crain sucked in a breath and then her bluer than blue eyes sought his out. “I see,” she admitted. 

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido desperately wanted her alive. As much as it pained him to admit sentiment, he would rather a world where she was alive although in the care of another empire and the arms of another man, than one where she might be murdered on the streets of San Francisco.

“If we do this, Miss Juliana Crain must be completely gone. I cannot say how long you will be hidden before I arrange for you to be found. You will never speak to your mother again. You will never see Mr. Frink, not that I believe you have that particular desire. You will leave this place with me in a matter of days and we will enter the Neutral Zone. Using my diplomatic visa we will infiltrate the American Reich where I will then arrange matters.”

She looked at him for a long moment. “And it will all be over? It will—all—be gone?”

He understood what he was asking her and he took off his spectacles for a moment so she could see his eyes unobstructed. “If you wish for a final goodbye among those here, then you will be given one.”

Juliana Crain nodded and then took in a deep breath. “Who will find me?”

“I will arrange for Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith in New York City or one of his highest ranking men, Miss Crain. A letter will be left with you if I cannot give Obergruppenfuhrer Smith the details myself. I intend to meet with him personally.”

She nodded nervously. “Thank you, Chief Inspector. As always, I put my life in your hands.”

It was done then. He put back on his spectacles and turned off the recording machine. Coming around the table he looked down at her and she rose to stand beside him. She reached up on her toes to whisper in his ear, “If I could have gotten to you, I would have, Takeshi-san.” Then she kissed him slow and sweet. He pressed his hands on her upper arms, holding her there as he reveled in the kiss, one of their last, before pulling away and walking out the door. He had to arrange to give her away to the American Reich.

He wasn’t a simpleton. He knew what would happen.

She was beautiful, she was young. Although she was in the accident, she was still capable of bearing children. Juliana had been fortunate with Frank, ensuring she wouldn’t carry a Jewish child, but there had been one occasion when she had to visit a doctor to end a pregnancy, killing his child. A bombing had forced a miscarriage several months earlier. He still prayed for their souls, but it was necessary for him to keep his position as Chief Inspector and for the honor of his family.

Her eyes were Aryan.

They would find her a husband. It was a certainty.

Now there were only the arrangements to be made.

…

His visit with Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith was unscheduled. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had settled Juliana Crain in an apartment in Manhattan that was owned by the Japanese Government. She only had Japanese style dresses made of the finest silks, enough food in the kitchen to last two weeks, and she had her new personal history memorized. The door was locked from the outside. No one from the embassy would disturb it while he had signed out the use of it and the American Reich would not disturb it unless they suspected a crime—and he was going to ensure that they did if necessary.

“I would prefer to speak off the record,” he told Smith as soon as he entered to the office. “This is a matter of great delicacy.”

Obergruppenfuhrer Smith was a handsome man with black hair, firm cheekbones, and blue eyes. He was not exactly the Aryan ideal but he was projected strength in a way that the Japanese were not, and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido hoped that this man stayed away from Juliana Crain. In his heart of hearts, he hoped that all men stayed away from Juliana.

“There is a situation,” he explained, handing over a file. “This young woman has been targeted by the Resistance and we cannot guarantee her safety. She is no longer safe among her family and friends because of their own ties to the Resistance (it was initially her sister who put her at risk), and because of her own association with the Japanese Government in San Francisco. She is considered among the white man there a ‘race traitor.’”

Smith looked over the papers carefully. “What happened to the film?”

“It is in possession of the kempeitai,” he responded.

“Of course,” he murmured, a little distracted, turning back to the first page, which listed her basic health information. “She is in perfect health, two viable pregnancies despite an automobile accident.”

“Yes,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido agreed, beginning to weave his tale. “A Semite, who has been tortured since then and whose family has been euthanized to set an example, pushed her in front of a bus. It is believed he is a member of the Resistance. He exerts a great deal of control over this young woman’s family and has been hounding her since the accident. I believe, as I have been informed, he has romantic intentions despite his violence.”

“Semites are irrational creatures,” Obergruppenfuhrer Smith agreed. “She never succumbed?”

“Not of her own volition,” he stated with a slight nastiness to his voice, thinking of the actual situation. “I do not know the exact specifics.”

Obergruppenfuhrer Smith flipped through the pages and then went to the back page. “There is a specific request that she be allowed to marry and have a family. It is understood in the Reich that a woman’s place is to bear the next generation for the Reich. This request is erroneous.”

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido’s lips thinned. “It is not always the case in the Pacific States.—This is a personal favor, Obergruppenfuhrer. Her friends in the government do not wish her blood on their hands. They want her to have everything the Reich can offer her.”

Looking at him shrewdly, Smith glanced at the file before flitting his eyes up again. “She’s had two viable pregnancies, but has had no husband and doesn’t seem to have any children defecting with her. Whose mistress is she?”

Of course, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had been prepared for this question. “He is trusting you with something precious. In times of war in Japan, and it is a place of conflict in the Pacific States, a mistress is more important than a wife. She holds an unparalleled place in Japanese Society while the conflict persists. You must realize that she has held a place of honor, which is commendable for one not born in Japan or even of Japanese parents.” He did not directly reference that she was white or that the Japanese were her overlords. It would not be tactful.

“A mistress more important than a wife?” Smith mused, finally turning and sitting behind his desk. He indicated a chair across from him and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido sat down. “That is certainly a novelty. How do I know, if this woman marries well, that there will not be an international incident if she is on her Nazi husband’s arm and she comes face to face with her former lover?”

It was a reasonable question to ask. Where Japan was all about honor and restraint, that was not necessarily true of the white man.

“I give you my personal assurances,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido murmured, bowing his head.

Smith looked at him for a long moment and then recognition appeared in his eyes. “Of course, Chief Inspector. I don’t suppose the young lady has a name?”

“Not anymore. I told her she must leave it in the Pacific States. On occasion she has been called ‘Misaki.’—‘beautiful blossom.’”

“It would be strange for someone with Aryan eyes,” Smith murmured, looking back at the opening page of her file, “to have a Japanese name.”

“It is still her name at present,” he answered. “Perhaps if she is left with nothing of the life she has lived for the past twenty years, she will be left with that.”

“Have you thought of another name?” Obergruppenfuhrer Smith asked carefully.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido paused and then admitted, “Jordis. She is a master of several types of Japanese martial arts. It has given others great pleasure to watch her with the sword and I understand, from my research, that this name means ‘sword goddess.’”

Smith appeared pensive. “You have an address?”

“I thought you might have a raid,” he agreed, taking out a small notecard from his jacket. “Suspect some illegal activity. Human trafficking. It’s true, is it not, Obergruppenfuhrer?”

“I suppose it is,” he laughed, taking the paper and looking it over. “You have said your goodbyes?”

“Yes,” he agreed, not letting any hint of sadness enter his voice. He had held Juliana for the last time in his arms, kissing her eyelids as she slept before he left. “She will never hear from anyone in our government again.”

He stood to leave but Smith called him back. “I will take her into my household,” he promised. “I’ll manufacture a reason. My son will appreciate having someone other than just me and a housekeeper. It will be good for him to teach someone about the Greater Nazi Reich, and it will give her a position unparalleled in society, as she has been accustomed to.”

It was a peace offering. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido understood it for what it was and he bowed low. “Thank you. I leave Misaki to your care.”

…

Juliana kept track of the days on a pad of paper on the desk. She had five silk dresses that came down past her knees, all in Asian silks, that were secured at her shoulders before clipping at her waist. They were simple in fashion though with intricate designs. She brushed her hair out every morning in the mirror, washing her face and putting on simple cosmetics that were provided. Takeshi had even remembered to provide six tubes of her favorite lipstick. She meticulously applied it every morning in case today was the day she would be rescued. 

She had been accustomed to eating and drinking primarily Asian food because of Takeshi. She wanted her home to be welcoming to him so she had it fully stocked. She only ate American food at food carts in the street or at her mother’s house.

Frank despaired of her—not that she saw much of him anymore.

Then again, he despaired over so many things, such as her ability to get out of sex. Over the past three years, she had had sex two times, and only because he had forced himself on her. At first she was injured but then she had met Takeshi. 

It had almost been a moment of fate, a chance meeting. She had given Takeshi the last of her mother’s favorite tea in a shop and, unbeknownst to her, he seemed to have followed her home (to where she lived with Frank) and personally delivered her the same herbal tea three days later (Frank had been out—sometimes she wondered if Takeshi planned it that way). 

At the time, Juliana had thought that certainly he had more important matters to occupy his time, especially as he introduced himself as the Chief Inspector in San Francisco, but as she sat at their little table, drinking tea, she found herself smiling for the first time since the accident. 

She had first kissed him in the rain in an alley, where no one could see them, and he had taken her to his apartment. She hadn’t left for four days, preferring to return to his home after her day working for the Trade Minister, where Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido would make passionate love to her again and again. Then they would settle into dinner, filled with kisses, and stories of what life was like before the war, and what it was like in Japan.

Now, it was different. The buildings were so clean from what she could tell. When she made love to Takeshi one last time here in New York, she had actually cried. She believed she didn’t love him, but she felt precious.

Juliana wondered if she would ever find that again.

Now, after three days of being alone, all she could do was think of how she would never see Takeshi again. All she had from him was a bracelet that she wore around her left wrist. It wasn’t a wedding ring, but it was a promise of fidelity between them. Her family thought it odd. Frank had called her a traitor when she first started wearing it, but she didn’t care. Takeshi had given it to her as a sign of his devotion, and she had sworn never to take it off—but here, in the Greater Nazi Reich, she just might have to break her promise.

She didn’t even hear the first hit to the door as she looked out the window down to the street below, her cup of strange black tea in her hand. Then she heard the second shudder and she looked over at the door. A third forceful kick and the door flew into the room and she dropped the teacup in shock. 

It took a moment for the dust to settle and then a tall man in a black uniform, a black leather trench coat, and a black military hat walked through the door. His blue eyes looked at her and he smiled. “Misaki,” he greeted. “I understand that you are contraband from the Pacific States.”

Not knowing what to do, she bowed low. “I—Only one person has ever called me that.”

“It was the name I was given,” he answered in his voice which had a rather attractive rasp to it. “Do you prefer another? Jordis was suggested.”

Jordis. Yordis with a German ‘J.’ She rather disliked it. What was Takeshi thinking other than giving her a German name? The name of her cat Alexa would have been better! He had given Alexa to her on her twenty-third birthday.

“No,” she answered firmly. “Misaki is much more familiar. I’m fluent in Japanese and don’t know a word in German, I’m afraid.”

“We’ll just have to change that,” the officer promised. “I’m sorry it took us so long. I wanted to process you without having any fear of you being sent back. You’ll still need to go see Dr. Adler for a full check up in the next few days, but you’re coming home to me and my son, Thomas. He’s looking forward to meeting you.”

She nodded and then walked over to the closet, taking a suitcase out of it and coming back to set it on the bed. “How old is Thomas?” she asked, looking at him. “And who are you, Officer?”

“Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith,” he answered. “John, please. I promised Chief Inspector Kido that you would be under my personal protection.”

“Thank you,” she murmured as she folded a pink dress. “I—Thank you. I imagine this place will be strange to me.”

She was packed in a matter of minutes, gently putting the six tubes of lipstick on the top of her dresses, and then John ordered some Corporal to take the case for her before helping her into a coat. Slipping her feet into her shoes, she sighed and stepped out of the room. She looked behind her, at the bed where she had last made love to Takeshi, and then moved out into the hallway. 

Juliana Crain was dead, and now she was Misaki—strange as that name was, a name whispered in passion, in sweet affection. 

Wondering if she would ever find that again, she let herself be led to a car with small Nazi flags on it to show it was an official government car and, a moment later, John slid in next to her. 

“May I ask about your wife?” she murmured after the car had started.

“Helen?” he replied. “She died, bringing our daughter Amy into the world. That was a good ten years ago now.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she responded. “How old was Thomas?”

“About five,” he responded. “As I said, I think it will be good to have you around, someone to teach, a woman although you are quite young. At least he won’t think I’m planning on replacing his mother,” John laughed.

“No,” Juliana responded, laughing herself. “I imagine that would have been an awkward conversation.”

**2018/10/01**


	2. Part the Second

**Part the Second—**   
_“Everything I got, I bought it / Boys can’t buy my love, buy my love, yeah”_   
**—“Woman,” Kesha**

Juliana took a deep breath when the car stopped in front of a large family home, the likes of which she had never seen. “People live like this?” she asked. “Is that grass?”

Laughing, John opened the door. “Yes, Misaki. It’s grass. Children play on it. Adults lounge on it in the afternoons.”

Running up to the lawn, Juliana knelt down and put her hands in the grass. She smiled up at John. “It’s real. Real grass!” She heard the door of the house open and she quickly stood, looking up. A gangly boy in some sort of a uniform appeared. His eyes flitted between them.

“Thomas!” John greeted. “This is Misaki, who I told you about. She was just marveling over the fact that we have grass in the Greater Nazi Reich.”

“But—” Thomas seemed confused. “You’re Aryan. Your eyes—”

Self-consciously, Juliana looked down. Takeshi often commented on her eyes and how Aryan he found them. He liked to stare into them and brush her hair to the side, even if it wasn’t obstructing her eyes in the least. 

John, however, answered. “They are indeed Aryan, Thomas. However, in the Pacific States that was perhaps not a virtue. Misaki has a Japanese name as she was born in the Japanese Empire. We will respect it until a time when she might change it. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Father,” he responded, and Juliana looked up. “Welcome to our home, Misaki.”

“Thank you, Thomas,” she said, smiling a little. “I understand you will help me to study—but I’m not certain for what.”

“The ACT,” he informed her. “It’s for citizenship.”

Juliana paused for a moment and then nodded. “Of course,” she murmured, realizing that she had never wanted to be a citizen of any place other than the Pacific States. “Thank you, Thomas.”

She entered the house and hung up her coat, ignoring the way that Thomas was looking at her dress. 

“A glass of wine, perhaps,” John suggested as he led her into the living room, Thomas following afterwards. “Your nerves must be shattered after being smuggled into the Greater Nazi Reich and then being locked into an apartment for days.”

“Yes,” she admitted quietly. “Wine would be lovely.”

She sat down and noticed a woman in a simple black dress had appeared, her hair blonde, her eyes blue, and she curtseyed and reappeared with a glass of white wine for her and a glass of milk for Thomas. John poured himself two fingers of whiskey from the sideboard. “That’s Rose,” he explained, “our housekeeper. She’s here to make your life more comfortable, Misaki.”

Takeshi had had a housekeeper, an older woman with lines on her face. Juliana had only met her once. Rose was much younger, much prettier. Juliana wondered at it.

She still felt his hand caressing her face when she closed her eyes, the soft cadence of his voice. When she went to sleep in that strange apartment, she could almost imagine her small home, of him walking into it, setting down his hat and briefcase, the light shining against his glasses. The way they would sit down in silence until she would listen to his concerns. As she sipped her wine, Juliana realized that she loved him—and she had now lost him forever.

“Tell me of your life in the Pacific States,” Thomas asked eagerly. “Is it different there?”

Juliana carefully put down her glass. “I’ve seen little of New York,” she admitted, “just the back alleys where I got out of the trunk of a car and the back stairs of a building where I was smuggled into an apartment.” She paused as she glanced at John. “It was terribly efficient. The furniture surprised me. Everything’s cluttered in the Pacific States where the white man makes his home. The streets are filled with vendors who call out to you. The streets seem ordered and quiet here. In the Pacific States, all spaces the Japanese use are governed by Feng Shui—the idea of harmony. It seems—please correct me if I’m wrong—that economy and perhaps comfort are the principles here?”

“You are correct, Misaki. Wives in the Reich seek to make our homes comfortable. Otherwise we seek to economize our space.”

Thomas, however, was staring at her avidly. “The white man?”

She looked at him, picking up her wine again. “Is that not what—I’m sorry—there are the Japanese and the white man.”

“We are Aryans, Misaki,” John explained. “Then there are Semites or Jews. The Japanese are honorary Aryans.”

This confused Juliana. “What of the other ‘white man’? The Italians—the Poles—the French?”

“They are not afforded the same rights and regulated to menial work,” he told her simply. “We do not speak of them as they are not citizens of the Reich.—You have not mentioned Negroes.”

Taking a sip of her wine to calm herself, she paused. “They have fled primarily to the Neutral Zone. You occasionally see a Negro, but they are often brought in by the kempeitai for crimes against the state.”

John nodded approvingly. 

“Have you met one?” Thomas asked eagerly, his bright eyes shining.

“A Negro?” Juliana asked carefully. “No.” She would have had to report him immediately. Her position was an honored one but it also bore responsibility. The film had terrified her. If she hadn’t seen Trudy shot in the street just for possessing one, Juliana never would have run, leaving behind a bracelet with the sign of the sun god Amaterasu on it. She still wore it on her wrist as a sign of their –could she call it love?

“A Semite?” Thomas then asked in excitement.

Not knowing what to answer, Juliana was glad when John interrupted.

“Thomas. This is no way to treat a guest in our home, although she is a ward of the Smith family now.” He turned to Juliana. “Misaki, I apologize.”

She shook her head and put her hand up a little to signal that it was nothing. “I don’t mind. Of course Thomas is curious. I’m full of questions about the Reich.” She smiled self deprecatingly. “I hardly know where to begin.”

“Well,” he answered, looking from her to his son. “You have all the time in the world now, and we’re here to help. This will be a wonderful exercise for Thomas on civic duty, won’t it, Thomas? I do not want you to neglect your work, however. Misaki is quite capable, I’m sure, to study on her own, and there is a library in the city she can go to if she needs to look up finer points.”

“Yes, Dad,” he answered, but his eyes wandered to her.

Juliana paused when she saw it. It was how Takeshi first looked at her. It seemed Thomas had a bit of a crush on her. He was about that age, she supposed, and it was harmless.

“I can answer,” she murmured, catching John’s gaze before looking back at Thomas. “A Semite pushed me in front of a moving bus. I have rather elaborate scars on my back, that I would show you, but it would be rather improper. I’m lucky I survived. I knew him before and he was rather infatuated with me. Unfortunately, he had just asked me to marry him although I had never given him any encouragement, and he became rather—violent—when I refused him.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, he told authorities I was his fiancée, so they released me into his care and I convalesced at his home. It was very unpleasant.” There, the lie had been told and hopefully convincingly. Nevermind the fact that she had found her life so bleak that she could not bear it, that she had wished herself dead, that she had felt so small and insignificant before she had met Takeshi. He had been her real salvation, not Frank who had been her boyfriend before the accident and had brought her back to a half-life of misery he had created. 

“Was he shot?” John asked.

“No one really saw what happened,” she told him glumly, thinking how sickening she found his touch. “He was brought in for questioning a few times for being a Semite”—mainly because Takeshi was jealous; he’d never admit to such a thing, but Juliana had always suspected it—”and would come back a few days later after being tortured. They never found anything on him, so as far as I know he’s never been executed, unlike his family. That might change,” she added, trying to sound hopeful. 

“Well,” John stated, picking up his tumbler of whiskey, “I’ll drink to that. Prost!”

Juliana lifted her glass. “Prost!” she repeated and then she took a sip. She’d never drunk to someone’s death before. She absently wondered what Frank was doing now.

The bracelet hung on her wrist, which Takeshi had slipped back on as she slept before he left. A sign, a symbol of the place where she had come from, of the people she must leave.

Dinner was pleasant. Juliana listened as Thomas spoke about his day at school, of the Hitler Youth (something which baffled her), and John gave him advice. This seemed to be an easy routine between them and she enjoyed watching father and son. 

When it was time to go to sleep, she found she had a large bed and a wardrobe where all her dresses had been hung. She supposed she would start wearing Western dresses. She had stopped wearing them except for work in the Nippon Building when Takeshi had moved her into her own apartment and had bought her the first one as a sign of his admiration. In the intervening two years, she had discarded almost all of her Western clothing. The suit she had worn to the Neutral Zone had been one of the few pieces she had left.

She climbed into the center of the bed, which she had a habit of doing whenever Takeshi wasn’t there. It felt less empty that way. The pillows didn’t smell of his cologne, however. Juliana wondered just how little sleep she would be getting that night.

…

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido stood at his office window and looked out. He wasn’t often taken to self-reflection, but he stared out into the rain. Juliana loved the rain.

There was a knock on the door, and he turned when someone entered. “The prisoner is here, Chief Inspector.”

“Good,” he answered, turning back to the rain. “Let us see what Mr. Frink has to say about abducting the personal property of a high ranking official of the kempeitai.” He turned with military precision, ready to torture a confession out of Frank Frink. He could not find the Resistance who had taken Juliana away from him—Trudy Walker was dead—but Frank Frink was ill advisedly where Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had left him. 

…

Frank Frink thought his name sounded ridiculous. However, it was his dearest wish that Juliana would one day become Mrs. Juliana Frink. 

When he had first met Juliana, she had a beautiful sadness in her eyes that he had wanted to capture in a portrait, but had never seemed to manage it. It was too lovely—too ethereal. The first night he had made love to her, she had been a tangle of limbs in her white nightdress, never allowing him to pull it over her head, never undoing her sleep braid. Frank almost felt dirty as he slipped from the couch, into the only bedroom in his apartment—their apartment, he told himself—and had hiked up her nightdress as she slept.

She had only come over that night because she had had a fight with her sister Trudy.

Although she was twenty-two, she seemed much younger, sleeping there.

He hadn’t known she was a virgin until her blood soaked her nightdress, even when she tried to push him away. Frank tried to soothe her, running a hand over her braid, kissing her unresponsive lips, promising that he loved her, and isn’t this why she’d come over?

When it was all over, barely satisfying for him and no more than guttural sounds of pain and gasps for her, Frank fell beside Juliana and took her in his arms. She had been wooden and if there had been tears on her cheeks, he had convinced himself that they were tears of elation.

Leaving her to her sleep the next day, he went to work in the factory.

He came home to the news that she had thrown herself in front of a bus and was in the hospital. He’d convinced Anne and Arnold that Juliana and he had decided to move in together and that he would take care of her. He brought her back to health, but he didn’t touch her except for a soft press of lips against lips—she was always unresponsive, but he convinced himself it was the pain.

The doctors said she had a shattered pelvis and would never have children. Juliana said she was glad.

Part of him was waiting for the day that Juliana walked out of his life. 

There was something comforting about having her in his home, however. More often than not, she was at the Walkers’ for dinner and he ate on his own, and she was always sleeping when he woke up. It was almost like living with a ghost. 

Juliana never smiled. She never laughed. 

He made her jewelry, saving up for the metal, but she never wore it. She kept it on the small table that served as her vanity. Soon, she stopped wearing make up although she always brushed her hair. Still, he kissed her when she got home and when he pushed her on the bed one night and hiked up her skirts, she barely put up a fight. Juliana did not kiss him back, she just lay there and turned her head away as he whispered how much he loved her, how he wanted them to be a family.

If there were strange herbs in the kitchen the next day, he did not question them. He did not touch her again or really question it when a lock appeared on the bedroom door and she left him to his drawings to go to bed. When Frank found himself resigned to the couch, he found a pair of his pajamas laid out for him. 

Still, she stayed and he didn’t know why. 

Juliana didn’t love him. He doubted she ever did. 

About a year (or perhaps a little longer) after he had first met Juliana and six months after the accident, something shifted. Frank came home and Juliana was there. However, she was washing two tea cups in the sink. The smell of the floral Japanese tea her mother, Anne Walker, favored was in the air. Juliana never drank it here in their home. She personally preferred a spicier blend. 

He looked away from her and was surprised to see that the table had been decorated with their nice table cloth, their two chairs set close together, and an old vase brought out with roses in it.

“Who brought you roses?” he asked a little petulantly.

“Oh?” she answered. “A member of the kempeitai.” Juliana said it so casually he was truly surprised. “I showed him a curtesy and he found out where I lived and brought me roses.”

“Having the attention of the kempeitai in any way,” he told her plainly, “is never a good thing. You remember that my grandfather was a Jew.” While it was true that in Jewish culture, the distinction of being Jewish was passed from mother to children and not through the patriarchal line, the Greater Nazi Reich (and their allies, the Japanese Empire) did not care. Jewish blood was Jewish blood. Frank was potentially tainted by association.

Juliana paused and then carefully set the teacup aside. “You never told me that.” Her voice was calm but he could hear the accusation of it.

“Of course, I did,” he argued.

“No,” she stated coldly, “you didn’t.” She threw her towel into the washboard and retreated into the bedroom. 

He thought it was just a fit of pique until twenty minutes later she came out with two suitcases and a hat on her head.

“Juliana—”

She went over to the door and took down a coat, which she put on despite the warmth outside. Then she went over to the flowers and picked them up in a fist. 

“Think rationally,” he begged.

“Think rationally?” she asked, whirling around. “I come here because I had a fight with Trudy and you rape me! Then you take me captive and rape me again! I’m only here because—” She took a deep breath. “I don’t know why I’m here! Probably because I’m now defective and no one else will probably ever have me! I’m so full of inertia, I cannot bear the thought of stepping outside most days and only drag myself out to my parents’ because I sit at their table and can see happiness.”

Anger coursed through Frank. He had never forced Juliana. He was not a rapist—he was not a monster, not like the Japanese who raped their country every day. “Do not accuse me of—”

“The truth?” she shot back. “What did you think you were doing? I tried to kill myself because of what you did to me. What if there had been a child, either time? It would have been a Jew. The kempeitai could have come for it at any time. How could you do that to my child, Frank? How could you do that to me?” She took a fortifying breath and he stood there, stunned. “—Goodbye, Frank.” Then she picked up her cases, the roses still in her hand, and ran up the stairs to the street, and was gone.

It took him two weeks to go looking for Juliana. In the end, it was Anne Walker who telephoned him and invited him to dinner. He had suspected that Juliana had been staying with them, but during his three months of searching, he had been hesitant to approach the Walkers. Now they had come to him.

He arrived, strangely, before Juliana. He thought perhaps she was at aikido, but when she arrived she was wearing a purple, Asian style dress that had short sleeves and went down to just below her knees. There was a pattern of tree branches and birds nesting in them on the pale cotton fabric. Her neck was incased in a high collar.

Anne took in her dress and pursed her lips. “How is your new apartment, dear? Do you need anything?”

“No,” she answered. “I’m quite comfortable. Just adding a few finishing touches. I thought you’d like to see my new dress.”

Looking it over, Anne pursed her lips again. “Well,” she stated, “it certainly looks pretty on you despite being Japanese. I know you work for the Trade Minister now, but you need not cater to their culture all the time.”

Juliana shook her head fondly, and came fully into the room and her eyes caught Frank’s. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I thought you might like to see a familiar face who isn’t Japanese,” Anne suggested as Frank smiled awkwardly. “You never know. Your romance might be rekindled. Lord knows you’ll never find a boyfriend in the Nippon Building.”

Turning away from Frank, Juliana stated quite pleasantly, “I’m quite capable of finding my own boyfriends, Mom.” She brought out some tea and gave it to her mother, air kissing her cheek given that she was wearing red lipstick, something she had never done all the time Frank had known her. “Compliments of the Chief Inspector.” 

Frank heard a plate clatter and turned to see Trudy setting the table. The plates in her hand had fallen on the table, neither fortunately breaking, and she was staring at Juliana in shock. Her eyes flitted to Frank and he saw horror shining out of her eyes. 

It seemed Juliana also heard and she took out a tube of lipstick from her pocket and came over from Trudy. “I thought you’d like pink. For special occasions or to make yourself feel pretty.”

“I don’t want anything from the Chief Inspector or from any other of your Japanese friends,” Trudy stated coolly as she picked up the plates again and finished setting the table. 

It seemed Juliana was undeterred. “I picked it out,” she promised, “with you specifically in mind. Please, Trudy. Even if you never use it, please accept it as a gift—from me.”

Reaching out, Trudy took the tube of lipstick and inspected the color before slipping it in her pocket. Somehow, Frank knew she would never wear it.

From then on, he was Juliana’s boyfriend in name only. The Walkers invited him to events. Juliana would sometimes go visit his family as she was fond of Laura and the children and would speak to Paul in fluent Japanese. He knew that she moved fluidly in her job at the Nippon Building and her—singular—friendships with certain Japanese individuals, but he had no idea she spoke the language.

He had lost her, he realized, and when a year later the kempeitai came and took him away, he thought that it was only natural. He hadn’t seen Juliana since he had followed her home from the Nippon Building where she was surprisingly wearing a Western dress (he hadn’t seen her in one since she had moved out) and had gone to one of the more exclusive apartment buildings in a fashionable part of the city. 

She had been inside for over two hours before a car drove up and a Japanese man in spectacles stepped out of it and entered the building. Frank had almost left when half an hour later, the man appeared again with Juliana with him, her hair fashioned on top of her head in a clearly Japanese style. She was also wearing what appeared to be an altered kimono. It still had the wide sleeves, but it was buttoned don the side like a Western suit in the Asian fashion, an odd harmony. The outfit also did not have a sash of any kind. 

He wondered where she was going, where this man was taking her as she entered the backseat of the car. 

Of course, Frank was lying in wait that night when she came back, managing to find the correct hallway. The Japanese man was rigid and cold as he escorted her back to a door and he had spent the whole night in there with Juliana. It was only after the sun rose that the man left, pristine, his suit perfectly in order, his spectacles in place. Juliana had walked him to the door and smoothed down his tie with a genuine smile, and he had whispered, “Misaki-chan,” to her as he lifted his hand to her cheek before leaving. 

The door didn’t get a chance to shut before he had barreled through it. He couldn’t even look Juliana in the eye as he demanded if she was a Pawn mistress—if she was being forced—if Anne and Arnold knew. He didn’t even pay attention to the cat that was winding around his legs. Frank didn’t even hear the answers, he just raged like a beast as he shook her and left her on the floor before leaving for work. He was late.

He was surprised when there weren’t reprisals.

However, the man had finally come for him. The same spectacles, the same suit, a different tie, but still pressed. 

“Mr. Frink,” the pawn stated, the light from the lamp reflecting off his glasses. “Where is Juliana Crain?”

His stomach sinking, Frank wondered if he would make it out of this room alive.

**2018/10/01-2018/10/02**


	3. Part the Third

**Part the Third—  
** _“Is it cool that I said all that? / Is it chill that you’re in my head? / Cus I know that it’s delicate”  
_ **—“Delicate,” Taylor Swift  
**

Joe Blake had come back from the Neutral Zone with a film and no contact. It was late at night when he arrived back in the American Reich and he decided to call Obergruppenfuhrer Smith at home. There was only one ring when it was picked up.

“Hello?” a decidedly feminine voice answered. From what he knew, Obergruppenfuhrer Smith was a widower, so Joe had no idea who this woman was.

Clearing his throat, he stated, “Is the Obergruppenfuhrer there? I assure you he will want to speak to me. I’m one of his agents.”

The woman on the other end of the line paused. “I’m sorry, but I must ask you to call his office. I have not been informed of the possibility of any—agent—calling this number. You do realize this is his private residence?” Her voice was calm but there was a pinch of some other emotion there. It wasn’t annoyance. It was wariness perhaps, almost fear, which surprised Joe.

“I assure you—”

Someone else picked up. “Is someone on the line?” the undeniable voice of Obergruppenfuhrer Smith asked.

“John,” the female voice greeted in relief. “The man on the line claims to be an agent.” Yes, it was definitely a hint of fear.

“I am sorry to have startled you, Misaki. Now, it’s late. Perhaps you should go to bed. You have a big day tomorrow. You are buying Western clothing as, you are, in fact, Aryan and not Japanese. I’ll come speak to you when I’m finished with my phone call.” Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith could be called many things. Kind was not one of them. However, when speaking to this ‘Misaki’, he certainly sounded kind. Indulgent, perhaps. It was baffling to Joe.

There was a pause, and then she answered. “Of course. Goodnight. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused.”

“No inconvenience,” Obergruppenfuhrer Smith promised and then there was a click. “Now, is there an agent on this line?”

“It’s Joe Blake,” Joe stated. “I think I can call myself an agent.”

“Joe,” he greeted, his voice suddenly with a skip to it, a near jubilance. “It’s good to hear from you. Are you still on the road or have you made it back to New York?”

“New York. Brooklyn,” he elaborated. “I still have the film in my possession. I’m afraid of arranging a drop because of my cover.”

There was a pause as if Smith were thinking. “I’m certain something could be arranged. I know they’re always watching, and I have Misaki to think about. She’s a high-ranking political refugee from the Pacific States. The poor girl had to leave her American name behind for fear of it being recognized and has only Japanese clothing.”

Joe raised his eyebrows although he was on a dark street at a public telephone. No one would be able to see him, but Misaki certainly sounded interesting. He doubted he would ever meet her, however. 

A moment later and he was being told to keep the film on him all of the next day, and he knew that he would probably be grabbed from the street. It would certainly be unpleasant but it would keep his cover with the Resistance.

He hung up a moment later and took a deep breath. It was time to go home to Rita and her son.

…

John Smith hung up the phone in his room and took a deep breath. He hadn’t quite heard the one ring because he had been brushing his teeth and thought he had imagined it. It was lucky that Misaki had picked it up. He wished it hadn’t happened, but he needed to catch that telephone call. Putting on his robe, he went to Misaki’s room and rapped on the door. A moment later it opened to show Misaki in a silk robe that was obviously Japanese. He supposed she was wearing some sort of nightgown beneath it.

“Misaki,” he greeted. “I’m sorry you were confused.”

She shook her head, the braid of her hair swishing from side to side. “Of course, you have work, John. I know that. I just didn’t realize that some sort of agent would be calling. I thought it was the Resistance. I know from Mom that—there was someone close to me that got calls in the middle of the night. It scared me a little.”

Hesitantly reaching out, John took her by the shoulders and squeezed them reassuringly. “I know this might not make sense, but you are safe. The Resistance would never call here. They don’t know who you are. Now—you remember what we talked about? A name? Susan is taking you tomorrow and it might be better if she not call you ‘Misaki’ in public.”

Misaki took a deep breath. “I was thinking about empires. The first empire was forged by Alexander the Great. He conquered the known world at the time, getting as far as India.”

“He did,” John agreed, seeing where this was going.

“I don’t like the name ‘Alexandra,’” Misaki admitted, “I never did, but ‘Alexa.’ What do you think?” Her Aryan eyes looked at him with such fear that he wanted to draw her to him and comfort her as he had when Thomas was a small child.

“Alexa,” he agreed with a smile. “Alexa Smith. I quite agree with it. I will alter your file in the morning and we shall inform Thomas.”

She nodded and then whispered, “goodnight,” before closing the door.

John stood there a moment before returning to his own. It felt terribly empty, but for once he wasn’t thinking of Helen. Instead, he imagined Misaki—Alexa—a warm young woman, so lost in the world who needed him more than he had ever been needed. He knew the look of a young woman who wanted to be loved. She was probably dreaming of her lover, who was most likely Chief Inspector Kido, but that was only because she had been deceived about Aryan supremacy. She had been downtrodden and hadn’t realized the inferiority of the Japanese race. She would soon learn.

It was best that her children—whether they had been aborted (a crime in the Greater Nazi Reich except in cases of fetuses being defective) or left behind—were not here. She would have strong Aryan children, and perhaps, John thought, he would be the one to give them to her with her piercing blue eyes.

…

He was picked up off the streets. Two Stormtroopers had thrown a hood over his head and forced him into a car, then driven off with him without so much as a word. Joe had struggled to make it look believable and he knew there would be bruises later, but it was all in a good day’s work. 

They left him in a large office and took the hood off his head. He was seated in a comfortable chair and he didn’t have long to wait. He turned over the cannister and was about to leave when Obergruppenfuhrer Smith’s aide entered and told them that “Miss Smith is here.”

A smile showed on the Obergruppenfuhrer’s face and a young woman walked in. She was slim and barely in her twenties, Joe would have to guess, and simply the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. She was dressed in a black dress with a jacket with symmetrical shapes on it. A swastika was pinned into her hair, her lips painted red, and bright blue eyes shone out of her face.

“Well, John?” she asked a little tremulously. “Do I look Aryan enough now?”

“You do,” he answered, coming up to her and taking her hands. He held them out to get a better look at her. “I trust you bought more than this one dress.”

She laughed a little. “Susan was very insistent. I have ten including two evening dresses. I told her that was excessive, but she said I was a woman of consequence now.”

“Quite right,” Obergruppenfuhrer Smith agreed. “Joe Blake, meet my ward, Alexa Smith. I referred to her as Misaki on the telephone last night.”

“Miss Smith,” Joe greeted. “Welcome to the Reich.”

Her smile dimmed a little but then, in a fraction of a moment, it was back on her face. “Thank you, Mr. Blake.”

Then, Obergruppenfuhrer forgot him in favor of his ward again. “I insist on taking you to Sullivan’s tomorrow after you see Dr. Adler. You’ll need a treat.”

“Sullivan’s?” Alexa asked, confused.

“It’s the most exclusive restaurant in New York,” Joe told her kindly. “You’ll have the best food the American Reich can offer.”

Her eyes widened and she nodded. “I’m still not used to American food,” she admitted.

“They don’t have American food in the Pacific States?” Joe asked and he was surprised at the look of warning that Obergruppenfuhrer Smith gave him.

After a moment, she answered, “They do. However, I didn’t eat much of it.”

Joe glanced between her and the Obergruppenfuhrer, but didn’t ask any more questions.

“You should come for V-A Day,” Obergruppenfuhrer Smith finally stated, looking at Joe again. “I’m sure Alexa would like the company of someone other than a school boy, however well they get on, and a hardened officer. The more people around her the better, I imagine.”

“Sir, that really isn’t necessary—” Joe tried to demure, but his eyes searched out Alexa again.

“I insist.” He clapped Joe on the back. “Now, be off with you. I’ll have my men throw you from a moving car to keep your cover.” That seemed to be that, then. Joe took one last look at Alexa, nodding to her, before leaving the office, wishing he didn’t have to leave Alexa behind. Rita suddenly seemed to be a poor comparison.

…

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked at Frank Frink’s bloodied body and derived no pleasure from it. He made a signal with his head and the body was carried out of the cell to where the traitor would be executed.

He remembered, all those years ago, that kiss in the rain. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had been unable to visit Juliana Crain in her home again as she had left her shared apartment with Frank Frink a mere hour after Kido had visited her there. She had returned to her mother’s home, and the insufferable woman never left the apartment.

While her husband was valuable to the kempeitai, his wife was certainly proving to be more than a simple annoyance.

He set an agent on Juliana Crain confidentially and soon learned that she attended an aikido studio nearly every day and always at the same time. It pleased him that she took such an interest in the Japanese culture. One day he went and watched her and saw how she had mastered the art. He had meant to leave her to herself and return to work, but instead he had approached her and bowed to her in front of her entire class.

Juliana had looked at him in astonishment before bowing in return. 

“Will you take tea with me?” he asked as he led her off of the floor. “I have been informed that you have changed residences and I do not wish for the presence of your esteemed mother.”

She turned to him and smiled. “Yes, Chief Inspector. If you would allow me to change?”

He made a signal with his hand, and she turned away from him.

It was clear that she was efficient as she returned just twenty minutes later with damp hair in a braid and in a clean dress. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido thought absently to himself how flattering she would look in Japanese styles. 

“You are very beautiful today, Miss Crain,” he told her carefully over tea.

She blushed and took a sip of her tea. “You are too kind. I don’t think many Japanese find us Americans beautiful.”

“Then they are blind,” he answered simply. 

They then sat in silence for several minutes. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was content with that. There was a beauty and simplicity to taking tea with a woman. If she were Japanese and this were the appropriate venue, he would ask her to sing for him, but unfortunately that was not possible. He doubted she could sing in the acceptable style. Still, he wondered how she would sing.

When she placed her hand on the teapot, quietly asking him if he would like a second cup, he nodded. As she was pouring, he inquired, “Why did you change your address, Miss Crain?”

“Frank and I had a difference of opinion on Japanese culture,” she answered after considering for a moment. “He is also not a kind man. He pretends otherwise, but when it matters he is not kind.”

“I see,” he replied. “I am sorry, Miss Crain.”

She shrugged her shoulders elegantly. “I just needed the courage. You gave it to me, Chief Inspector. For that I will always be grateful.” Her eyes caught his and their gazes held, and he saw a message hidden in them.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido nodded once and then took another sip of his tea. “I have a wife,” he stated carefully, looking down, “a son who will bring honor to my family name. You should know this, Miss Crain.”

He heard her put down her teacup and then stand from her kneeling position at the table, and he looked up to see her leave through the door. Placing several yen on the table, he followed her at a sedate pace and when he caught up to her, Chief Inspector Kido led her into an alleyway where they wouldn’t be seen. He stood there, looking at her through his spectacles, and breathed in deeply, “Miss Crain, I did not mean to insult you.”

“You did not insult me,” she replied. “You merely informed me that you had a wife—”

She stilled when he reached up and touched her cheek with his hand. Her blue eyes went wide and she swallowed. Then, hesitantly, a moment later she reached up and touched his cheek. 

The pads of her fingers were soft and it had been years since Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had been touched so intimately. He almost quivered under the feeling of gentle skin on his face, but instead he cradled her face between his two hands and brushed his thumbs against her cheeks. “I have said it before, but you are beautiful, Juliana Crane.”

The next day, he sent flowers for her without signing the card. However, in them he had included details of a position with the Trade Minister at the Nippon Building. He had already put in a good word, stating that she was a young lady of upstanding character whose stepfather worked for the kempeitai and who studied aikido and the Japanese way of life herself. If the Trade Minister suspected anything, he didn’t say.

He received a phone call from the Trade Minister’s aide that Miss Juliana Crane had received the position and would be starting the day after tomorrow. 

When, over two years later, he watched Frank Frink get shot, he thought that this was insupportable. It had been nearly three weeks since he had seen Juliana. Even if it was to simply take tea with her, he attempted to see her twice a week. Anything less would be unacceptable. He had already been considering how to extend his tour in the Pacific States. It would mean being away from his son longer, but he would remain with Juliana. 

Something must be done. 

He was Chief Inspector of the kempeitai. He could suspect his own wife of being a traitor to the Empire and have her be quietly assassinated. It would be suspect if he married his Aryan mistress, but he had a high enough station in society that people would not challenge him to his face. Juliana would be a good mother to his son, he was sure of it. She would have been a good mother to their two children if they had not been terminated for the honor of his house. 

He still regretted their deaths and often dreamt that he had their blood on his hands. It had been his decision. Juliana had begged him when she was pregnant with the second child, saying she would give the child her name, that although people would suspect, they could say nothing. However, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido would never leave a child of his to the cruel ways of the world. A child of his would not be born a bastard. Would not be of mixed race to be looked down upon by the Japanese.

How then was he considering it now?

All of this would not necessarily be the case if there was a third child or any others. That child would be wanted. Another child of theirs, if they were blessed, would bring his house honor. 

Yes, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido would make the telephone call and he would get in touch with Juliana. He would ensure she not marry before he could claim her for his own.

…

V-A Day was bright and sunny. Juliana smiled when she woke up, the name ‘Takeshi’ on her lips. 

She breathed out and then got up for the day. She knew she was expected to embody the Reich and so chose the one red dress she had, putting her hair up simply with decorative pins, swastikas as earrings, and the lipstick from Takeshi on her lips.

Skipping down the stairs, she greeted Thomas at the table and took her place. John was already gone as he was in a parade in New York, but he would be back later. 

“So what do we do on V-A day?” she asked. 

“Well,” he responded, pouring himself some orange juice, “don’t you have it in the Pacific States?”

“No,” she answered. “We don’t celebrate it. You see why I’m a little confused.”

“We have a turkey, and we celebrate the Reich,” Thomas answered simply. “There is nothing to really know about it. We watch the Fuhrer on tv, of course.”

“Of course,” she agreed and then paused. “I don’t know German.”

“It’s dubbed,” he informed her. “It’s rather annoying hearing both languages at once.”

She nodded. “I imagine.” Juliana thought back to the Pacific States to how nothing was dubbed. When there was an announcement in Japanese, there would be subtitles. Of course, television in general was in English for the American population.

When John returned home, Juliana pasted on a fake smile, remembering their night at Sullivan’s. He had wanted to dance with her and she had felt rather awkward. It had been a waltz, which had been common enough in the Pacific States. The Japanese did not dance—they had other cultural ways of spending time with women—but she and Takeshi had danced in her apartment. 

It was strange being held by another man. 

She felt like she was being untrue to Takeshi.

“I’ll just go upstairs and get changed,” John was now saying to them both. “It’s your first occasion as hostess, Alexa. I know it may be a little daunting, but we’ll be there every step of the way.”

“You think I cannot serve as a hostess?” she teased.

“I imagine there are different social norms in the Pacific States, Alexa,” John stated seriously. “Don’t you drink tea?”

Juliana’s mind flashed back to that first time she had taken tea with Takeshi, back in Frank’s apartment. How they had sat and looked quite openly at each other, the roses on the table between them.

“Quite,” she answered with a small smile. “It can be quite elegant. I miss the manners of it.”

John took her in for a long moment and then decided, “Well, Alexa, we’re just going to have to change that.”

It was then that the phone rang and all their attention focused on it. John murmured, “I wonder who that can be?” before picking it up. “Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith,” he greeted. “Is that wise?” John asked, looking over his shoulder at Alexa. “I trust this is a secure line.”

After a moment he removed the telephone from his ear and held it out to Juliana. “It’s for you—about a state execution in the Pacific States.”

She stepped forward carefully and said, “Hello? This is Alexa Smith,” into the receiver.

The cool, calm voice of Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido came over the line and it was a balm to her soul. “You will be pleased to know, Miss Crain,” he stated, “that after Mr. Frank Frink admitted to violating the property of the kempeitai physically no less than twice and being found responsible for this property’s disappearance, he has been summarily executed.”

She smirked. “Property? How prettily you put it, Chief Inspector.” 

“I find, Miss Crain,” he continued as if she hadn’t said anything, “that I will soon find myself without a wife. I would be most gratified if you would find yourself to be still without a husband.”

Juliana’s breath caught at the implications. “Is this a state execution as well?”

“I couldn’t possibly comment, Miss Crain,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido stated, his voice crisp with his clipped words. “I would remind you that the workings of the kempeitai are strictly confidential.”

She looked away from the wall toward John who was waiting patiently along with Thomas. “May she rest with her ancestors. How’s Alexa? Was she given to my parents?”

Thomas visibly startled and she saw John’s hand clench at his side. 

“I have the great honor of keeping her as a companion,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido answered solemnly, which almost made her laugh.

“Well, she always did like you,” she agreed, remembering how her cat used to try to sleep on his head on more than one occasion. “Goodbye, Chief Inspector.”

“Scita,” he responded—and she promptly dropped the phone.

Grasping for it, Juliana put it back to her ear and desperately whispered, “Takeshi-san? Are you still there?”

There was a long pause and she thought that he had disconnected the line. “Misa-chan,” he stated quietly.

Looking up desperately, her eyes filling with tears, she murmured, “Scita, Takeshi-san. Scita.” Then she carefully hung up and tried to collect herself. “Thank you, John,” she stated as she continued to stare at the telephone. “I am glad to know that Frank Frink has been executed. I never thought I would want another person dead—but—” She sighed.

“I understood he was an enemy of the state,” he commented and she looked up at him, tears still in her eyes.

“He is—was,” she agreed. “I believe you would call him a Semite.”

“Quite.” He turned to go up the stairs and then, just before he was to go up the first step, he asked, “What was that Japanese word you used, Alexa?”

“San,” she said, willfully misunderstanding with a small smile. “You attach it to a name to show respect. If we were in the Pacific States, you would be John-san. You would call your son, Thomas-chan, as a term of affection and because he is still a child.”

“No,” he argued, his voice light and airy. “The other word: scita.” His pronunciation was clumsy, and Juliana hated hearing him say it, and she swallowed just at the sound of it. However, she pulled herself together and pasted another innocent smile on her face.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she responded. 

“I can call the Japanese Embassy, Alexa,” he warned. “Thomas, go into the Living Room. This is perhaps a conversation for adults.”

Thomas dutifully left, and Alexa stared at John, daring him to do just that.

“You see,” he stated, as he came toward her. “I was informed when you were smuggled into the American Reich that you were the mistress of a high-level Japanese official. You even had two viable pregnancies while you were his lover.” John stalked toward her, an undeniable predator. “It’s clear that he liked to keep you in style, with your expensive make up, those six tubes of lipstick, silk dresses. I had deduced that it was Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido and that he was not simply your contact. Are you passing messages to each other even though you have defected, Alexa? The last thing I want to do is put you in detention.—Is even the name ‘Alexa’ a message?”

“Alexa is my cat,” she returned. “She was a birthday present.” Juliana looked into his eyes and they shone with a dangerous honesty.

John just looked back at her dispassionately, clearly unimpressed.

“It meant,” she admitted after a moment, “’I love you.’ We’d never said the words before. It’s why I dropped the phone in surprise. He really did call to tell me that Frank had been executed.”

“You do realize you sully your blood by having children with a man such as him,” John told her sternly.

“Or I purify his,” she suggested glibly. “Even before I met Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido, I garnered attention from the Japanese. My blue eyes were considered Aryan and women who have Aryan characteristics but do not fully resemble the ‘Master Race’ as you call it are desirable.”

John looked pensive for a moment. “I did not realize that about Japanese culture. He should have taken you home to Japan instead of sending you to us if you are so prized.”

She turned her face away in pain. “A man has his wife and children in Japan while he is on tour in the Pacific States. His mistress remains on this side of the ocean.”

“I see,” he answered quietly. “No wonder he wanted better for you, a husband, children. If he loves you, he would want you to have what he could not give you. The trouble is whether a man of the Reich would want a Jap’s cast offs.” 

It was said gently, with no malice, and Juliana thought how to answer. In the end, she didn’t respond at all as the doorbell rang. It seemed like Joe Blake had arrived.

**2018/10/02**


	4. Part the Fourth

**Part the Fourth—  
** _“And, love, if your wings are broken / Borrow mine ‘til yours can open, too / Cuz I’m gonna stand by you”  
_ **—“Stand By You,” Rachel Platten  
**

Every Saturday, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido would leave work at exactly three in the afternoon to meet Juliana Crain after her aikido practice. It was her one day off from the Nippon Building and she took full advantage of her training, and he would always meet her. They had been seeing each other for two months and since that day in the alley, they had done nothing more than share looks and exchange small gifts.

A hair comb, red lipstick, flowers.

Small tokens of affection that could be explained away.

“I have located,” he stated carefully after a few minutes of silence, “an apartment in a favorable district that I think would meet your approval, Misaki-chan,” he told her, using his nickname for her. She had come in one day with flower petals in her hair and the name had struck him.

“The Trade Minister is generous,” she answered, “however, without a roommate I doubt I could afford even the most inexpensive of apartments.”

His lips curled, “Mr. Frink, it would appear, afforded that hovel he called a home on his pay from the factory. I am certain you are being more than adequately compensated. However, Juliana, I did not mean that you would be financially responsible.”

She looked up at him in shock. “Chief Inspector—”

“I think, for this conversation, I must at least be ‘Takeshi-san.’ I am asking you to be my mistress, Misaki-chan.”

Juliana stilled and then took a careful sip of tea. “Takeshi-san,” she began carefully. “I have not had favorable experiences with men.”

“You mean Mr. Frink,” he determined solemnly, looking away from her. “We are a hard race, it is true. We conquer other nations, other empires, as easily as you breathe, Juliana. I will not pretend. That does not mean that we are not respectful to our women.”

“I would never think you were not respectful,” she answered in a calm voice although her hand was shaking. She quickly hid it in her lap, but not fast enough. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido noticed it.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido considered for a moment. “Do you wish to be reassured, Misaki-chan? Do you wish me to take you to my home this once?” He leaned carefully toward her to try to read her expression.

“I would never presume,” she began, but he cut her off.

“Presume.” His voice was unyielding and she looked up at him, her hair with that odd red sheen falling in front of her eyes. 

She blinked at him and then nodded. 

It had been raining when they left and when they passed an alley, she had pulled him in and pulled him up against a wall, their eyes locking. His umbrella was tilted at an angle as her back was up against the bricks and so her hair was being soaked by rain, but she didn’t seem to mind.

She leaned forward carefully, her eyes searching his, and then he had kissed her. At first it had been hesitant, but then he had dropped the umbrella, and he was pushing her shoulders against the wall, his lips seeking hers as he kissed her again and again, sloppily and in a hurried way he had never before experienced. As she reached up on her toes, he let his right hand slide up her long neck and tilt her jaw up. 

Soon her mouth was opening invitingly and he slipped his tongue between her lips and they were warring for supremacy and she was the epitome of wanton beauty—there—in the rain. His wife had never kissed him like this: Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had never experienced such passion, and all this with a girl from the Pacific States. 

Even if he hadn’t had offered already, he would have urged her to come home with him that night. When he entered his apartment, he immediately called the office and said he was working on a lead out in the city and would be back at work the next day. 

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido could tell she was afraid when he first stripped her of her wet garments, but when he ran his hands over her and kissed her shoulder, she shivered, and soon she was turning in his arms and her bare breasts were pressed against his naked chest. Within a few hurried movements they were a tangle of limbs and heated touches, and Juliana laughed when they almost fell before they made it to his bed. 

When she slept and he could finally drag himself away from her, he called and secured the apartment. Juliana had moved in less than a week later. 

He made love to her for days to the point where he knew her family would be looking for her although she showed up promptly for work each day. If the Trade Minister ever suspected anything, he never remarked on it. 

And Juliana was beautiful. Her skin flushed pink when she blushed. Freckles spattered against her stomach and he loved to trace them with his tongue, which made her giggle. Her blue eyes were entrancing and sometimes he would just stare into them, wondering at the secrets they held. 

He breathed in her natural smell and bought her cherry blossom perfume that she sprayed on her wrists and in her long hair. 

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido kept their affair discreet. He did buy her dresses in the finest silks, imported lipsticks, and would go to dinner with her when both their schedules would allow. However, he never took her to government functions. The kempeitai kept records of government officials and their mistresses and, with annoyance, he assigned his own case to his direct subordinate. 

His wife would never know. His life with his family and his life in the Pacific States was separate. Apart from the first time he was with Juliana, he never brought her to his home. He met her exclusively at her apartment or at a neutral location. 

He would sometimes see her when he visited the Nippon Building and they would not acknowledge each other except for a meeting of the eyes. He would always come visit her those nights, tracing the scars on her back to remind himself that she belonged to him and that he would keep her safe from all outside forces. 

Now, all these years later with Juliana an empire away, a request came across his desk and he picked it up. It was from a kempeitai employee, Arnold Walker. He had put in a request for any information on his stepdaughter, Juliana Crain.

That would prove difficult. 

He set it aside to be denied—for now. The less said about Juliana with Trudy Walker, a suspected Resistance member, in the family, the better.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido took a deep breath.

He looked at his calendar. Within three months his wife should be dead. Juliana just had to survive until then. Kido had already packed her personal belongings from her apartment and moved them to his own home for when she returned to him. He hung up her dresses, put out her cosmetics. He knew he was being sentimental, but he had finally admitted to himself and to her that he loved her. This was also, he believed, a love that the great Japanese poets wrote songs about. 

It was with this in mind that he had a photograph he had found in Juliana’s apartment—that he hadn’t even known had been taken—placed in his personal office. It was of the two of them taking tea together a few weeks after he had first taken her as his mistress as she was not wearing the bracelet, and they were looking at each other over their cups of tea. There was an unmistakable affection in their gazes that could barely be hidden by his professional façade. He thought, perhaps, that Juliana had paid another customer to snap a photograph of them. It was the type of thing she would do. Without having to pay rent or buy her own clothes or cosmetics, she would certainly have enough for that particular indulgence.

He was glad now. He had this small piece of her.

Soon they would be together, he promised himself. Soon.

…

Joe Blake sat in the living room as Obergruppenfuhrer—“Call me John”—Smith handed him a whiskey. There seemed to be a strange chill in the air that he couldn’t quite identify. When Joe had met Alexa, John had clearly been fond of her. Joe couldn’t figure out if it was as a daughter or as a potential wife. If he was confused, he was certain the poor girl was as well considering that she wasn’t even from the American Reich. 

Now they were polite but Joe would say that John was almost angry.

“We got a call from the Pacific States,” Thomas, the son, told him conspiratorially. “Something happened all over some Japanese phrase Alexa used.”

Oh, well, that only partially explained it. “Was it ‘God save the Sun God’? That’s a bit redundant, come to think of it.”

“No,” Thomas added, but then Alexa came over and sat down with her glass of wine.

The doorbell rang and Joe looked at Alexa in confusion. “Do you have another guest?”

“Not that I know of,” she answered. 

John had gone to the door and he looked honestly surprised before accepting what seemed to be a box holding a bottle. He came in with it and then put down his glass of scotch. “It seems, Alexa, that someone has sent you a bottle of plum wine with compliments of the Imperial Embassy. I think we might guess who the sender is considering just a few hours ago.” He certainly sounded disgruntled.

Alexa instantly smiled and stood up. “I love plum wine,” she exclaimed. “I think I’ll have a glass with dinner to mark it as a special occasion, and then at whoever’s birthday is next.” She opened it and her smile grew.

“I take it it’s your favorite,” John drawled. “Is this what we are to expect? Telephone calls from government officials on National Holidays? Private deliveries of Japanese delicacies? Am I going to be receiving visits at my office checking up on your welfare?”

The two were staring at each other.

Joe took a sip of his whiskey to hide his embarrassment. 

“Why don’t you just forbid him, then?” she questioned. “What do you care what my position is in the Pacific States? It’s honorary at this point as I’m no longer there.”

“You were sent here to be a proper Aryan wife. That cannot happen if one of the most powerful men in the Japanese military is sending you gifts and love notes.”

That was certainly a twist. Joe had no idea that the Japanese fell in love with Aryan women. He would imagine they found Aryans as repulsive as Aryans found them. Mixing of the blood was disgusting as far as Joe was concerned and he really didn’t believe in what the Reich stood for.

“I did not ask him to fall in love with me,” she answered carefully. “If I were being ungenerous, I would say that he stalked me in the beginning.”

John pinched his nose. “Given his line of work, I can certainly imagine that. Go put your wine away. I don’t know if you need to chill it.” He placed his hand on her shoulder. “I know he cares for you. He sent you here because it wasn’t safe for you in the Pacific States. However, I will be telling him this needs to end.”

Joe took another sip of his whiskey and glanced at Thomas who was staring at Alexa in fascination. “It seems,” Joe commented, “that your father’s ward inspires admiration wherever she goes.”

“Oh,” Thomas said, coming back to himself. “Yeah. She’s pretty wonderful.”

The kid had it bad.

Joe smirked. He was rather fascinated by her himself. 

…

It had been four months since Juliana had moved out and Trudy and her friends in the Resistance were almost positive that she was some Pawn’s mistress. Juliana had always embraced Japanese culture, but outside of work where she wore Western clothing, she wore Japanese dresses and stayed exclusively to Japanese dominated districts of San Francisco.

Every Tuesday, Friday, and Saturday she met Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido for tea. When she didn’t, they would either reschedule for a dinner or, sometimes, they would catch him going into her apartment building. Saturday was their best bet.

Juliana came out of aikido, her hair towel-dried and her clothes perfectly in place, and she would make her way to the same tea room. The hostess knew to give her a specific table. However, usually Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was already waiting for her. 

He was a high profile target. 

She was more than just collateral damage. Juliana, although she was Trudy’s sister, was to be made an example of. This is what happens when you become a Pawn’s mistress. 

Sitting at the table half an hour before Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido and Juliana were meant to arrive, Trudy skillfully set the bomb with the help of Janet. While one drank tea, the other felt with their hands as they secured the bomb. As they got up to leave, they hit the trigger. There was a forty five minute timer.

They waited across the street.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido arrived first and went in. Trudy couldn’t see into the windows but she knew he would be taken to his usual table. He would bow, he would order the tea to arrive when Juliana did, and he would patiently wait.

Three minutes later, Juliana appeared.

Thirteen minutes after that, the building blew up and Trudy left with an ache in her chest at the thought that her sister was now dead.

Little did she know that on that particular day Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was giving Juliana the bracelet with the flag of the sun on it, and had asked for a private table in the back. Juliana had been admiring her wrist, smiling up at him, when the bomb went off. Kido had thrown himself over her in desperation and when the dust had settled, he pulled away to see his eyes meeting her blue ones. Although the stench of explosives was in the air and he could hear people move under the rubble, he nonetheless swept forward and kissed Juliana, his heart singing at the sight of her being alive.

It was then that he first began to suspect that he was falling in love with this girl who was from a different culture, a different world, and yet whose heart beat against his own.

Six months later he learned that Juliana had been carrying his child and had lost it in the explosion. He had caused her to become a target. It was no coincidence they had chosen a time and a place when they would be together. For the honor of his house, he could not father a child by his mistress and he was often so impassioned that he did not take precautions, but he had killed his own child—and its blood was on his hands.

…

Juliana liked Central Park. She took a train into the city some days and just walked among the trees, breathing in the fresh air. A hand touched hers and she paused, looking into the face of a man she almost recognized.

“I’m sorry,” she greeted, “can I help you?”

“You’re a defector from the Pacific States,” the man stated and she pulled back in fear. “Woah, I don’t want to hurt you. I was wondering if you wanted to serve your people who have been trampled upon by the Japanese, the people who are being silenced by the Nazis.”

Her eyes widened. These were the people who had blown her up, who wanted her dead, who had sent her here away from the only life she had ever known and the man whom she loved although she could never call him hers. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to remain calm.

“I don’t know what you want—” she began and when he seemed to be about to speak again, she added “—but I cannot help you.”

“I have been watching you,” the man stated, “you seem to be trapped.”

She threw his hand off of her when he touched her. “I’m adjusting culturally, though I need not explain myself to you. Leave before I call the kempei—the police,” she corrected.

“You’re in a position of trust and power in the Smith family,” he stated. “I know you don’t believe in what the Reich stands for.”

She backed up away from him and screamed, “Help!” at the top of her lungs. 

The man looked spooked and she kept on screaming, “Help!” as loudly as she could. The man took off running and soon men and women were hurrying toward her and she broke down crying.

Half an hour later she found herself in a police station. “I’d like to speak to Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith,” she requested. “I’m his ward, Alexa Smith. He’ll want to know what I have to say. Please. I’m not lying. The Resistance are the ones who approached me, and—” Images of dead patrons with teapots smashed around them flitted through her head. “Please,” she begged.

It took less than twenty minutes for John to arrive and without thinking about it, she threw herself in his arms.

“I’m going to take you back to my office,” he promised, stroking her hair, “get you some tea, and then you can tell me what happened.”

She was wrapped in a blanket and she found herself in his office for the second time. After drinking her tea and fortifying herself, she described the man and what he had proposed. “He had no idea who I was—other than some defector who was somehow close to you. But I’ve seen him before. I know I have,” she said almost to herself. “I just can’t place him.”

A recording machine was on and Erich, John’s aide de camp, was taking notes. 

“Was it in the Pacific States? Was he a terrorist there?”

She chewed her lip. “I don’t know,” she whispered desperately. “I don’t know who he is. He obviously didn’t know me, otherwise he would have tried to blow me up. They tried that a few times back in San Francisco.”

John took a long drag of his own tea. “Chief Inspector Kido didn’t mention that.”

“It was routine,” she admitted, shrugging. “All American women who associated with Japanese officials were targets. We had to be moved at one point to guarded buildings; even the Japanese mistresses were placed there just before I defected.”

“I didn’t know the Resistance was so prevalent.”

“It wasn’t so much that they were prevalent, only that we were considered ‘race traitors.’” She sighed and placed her face in her hands, careful not to ruin her already smudged make up. “I can never go back, can I?”

Reaching out, John touched her knee. “No, Alexa, you can never go back.—And,” he added, standing, “you would be considered a race traitor in the Reich. I understand the Pacific States are an entirely different world, but you must know that we are the Master Race.”

Juliana wanted to roll her eyes but simply nodded her head. “I am learning that, thanks to Thomas’s help.”

“What you need,” he suggested, “is marshmallows toasted on the fire and hot chocolate. I’ll call Rose and have her get everything we’ll need and I’ll try to get home early despite this new development in the Resistance. We’ll take care of you, Alexa. You’re family now.” He went over to the tape recorder and turned it off. “I think that’s enough for today, Erich. Get a car for Miss Smith and send her home. We’re not going to make her take the train out to Long Island after her trying day.”

…

Joe Blake wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he rang the doorbell, a bouquet of flowers in his hands. It was over a month since V-A Day and he was hoping that the business with the Japanese government official had been sorted out by now.

Rose, the housekeeper, opened the door and smiled politely.

Suddenly feeling stupid in his nice black pants, white shirt, and leather jacket, Joe nonetheless pulled it together. “Is Miss Smith in?”

“Yes,” she answered, stepping aside. “Please come in.”

He was shown into the Living Room and he began to look at the photographs. There were several of Obergruppenfuhrer Smith and who Joe assumed was his wife with their son Thomas, who was a small child. Then there was Thomas older with his father. On the mantle, all the way on the end, there was one that was obviously new. It showed Thomas sitting in a chair, Obergruppenfuhrer Smith standing directly behind him in uniform, and Alexa at his side. The Obergruppenfuhrer and Alexa were looking down at Thomas who was smiling widely up at them. They looked like the perfect Nazi family, Thomas in his Hitler youth uniform, Alexa wearing Nazi red.

If it wasn’t apparent before, the Obergruppenfuhrer’s intentions were clear now. Joe’s hand tightened on his flowers and his mouth set in a line.

His decision was made for him when Alexa entered the room. “Joe,” she greeted. “I didn’t know you were coming. I was studying—I have my ACT tomorrow.”

“Oh,” he answered. “I’m sorry to disturb you. I know how important that is.”

She shrugged it off. “I need a short break. Fifteen minutes won’t kill me. They may give me renewed focus, if you can bear to have me kick you out or leave you to your own devices after that.”

He smiled at her then. “I don’t mind being kicked out by a beautiful woman, as long as she lets me say what I came to say first,” he flirted. Joe held out the flowers. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I thought iris perhaps.”

“Oh,” she stated with a small smile, taking them and lifting them to her nose. “How thoughtful. This is just what I need. I’ll put them on my desk. I’m afraid I only have a photograph that was smuggled out of the Pacific States with me.”

“Well, I’m glad I could help.”

The two just stood there, staring at each other, and so he glanced at the sofa and she laughed. The two moved to sit down after she set down the flowers. 

“I know you’re still getting used to New York,” he began, “and I was wondering if you’d like to see how the other half lives. I’d like to ask you to dinner—to a diner, specifically, to show you some of American culture.”

“Well, I certainly haven’t been to a diner in years,” she agreed. Alexa glanced over at the flowers. “Joe, are you asking me—?” She left the question hanging.

“Yes, Alexa,” he said, placing his hand over hers. “I am.”

She bit her lip, looking down at their hands and then at the flowers. “I think I need to ask permission.”

He took a deep breath, wondering how he should approach the situation. “Alexa, how old are you? I know you are now a member, however unofficial or not, of the Smith family—and I’m not blind. I have eyes. You don’t need Obergruppenfuhrer Smith’s permission to go on a date even if he may want to marry you—unless you want to marry him.”

Alexa’s mouth opened in shock or confusion—Joe wasn’t really sure. “John’s never even suggested,” she finally murmured.

“A picture’s worth a thousand words,” he stated, tipping his head to the mantle and she stood, his hand slipping from hers. 

She went up to the mantle and picked up the photograph and looked at it for a long moment before setting it down.

“That’s not the only one like it? Are there others with just the two of you?”

“And of me and Thomas,” she added, turning back to him. “They’re around the house in various places. I think one disappeared to Headquarters. John said it was time to celebrate the vitality of the Smith family and not mourn the past.”

Joe stood and put his hands in his pockets. “Surely you must be able to read between the lines.—But that’s neither here nor there. What matters is us. You and me. Come? We can have milkshakes and we can maybe go out dancing later.”

She moved away from him and brushed him off. “I think I would get confused if I dance with yet another man. We don’t dance in the Pacific States. Well, the Japanese don’t dance. I don’t understand what it means to dance here.”

“I doubt the Japanese don’t dance,” Joe suggested, coming up to her from behind.

“If they do,” she countered as she turned back toward him, “then it’s in the privacy of their own home and it’s never spoken of. The Japanese do everything not to touch other people. They bow instead of shaking hands, for example. For the first twenty-one years of my life, the only way I touched a Japanese person was through Japanese martial arts.—So, no dancing.”

“Then,” he suggested, “if you don’t like dancing, we don’t have to dance. A diner. Milkshakes. We can get to know each other. I’m very respectful to women.”

Joe had been so focused on Alexa, he hadn’t heard Obergruppenfuhrer Smith come in. “So respectful that you live with another woman and her son and seem to be asking Alexa on a date.”

He was standing in the door, unbuttoning his top button, his hat in his hand.

“How is your studying, Alexa?”

“It’s coming along well, thank you.”

“I think I need to speak to Joe alone. You can take your flowers if you still want them, though the idea that he wanted to have you as the second woman in his life might have soured the gift.”

Joe looked between them and saw that they were sharing an odd look. Alexa nonetheless took the flowers and left the room.

Obergruppenfuhrer Smith listened to her go and then closed the door. “Joe, I am disappointed in you. Alexa is meant for greater things than a double agent who can’t give her a home or respectability.”

“No,” he agreed, “she’s simply the kept woman of some Jap scum.”

Smith’s eyes burned. “That is purely your supposition. Now, if your situation changes, Rita is out of the picture, and your prospects alter, then come back. However, she may no longer be available.”

Something burned within Joe, but he simply nodded his head. “Can I take her out to show her New York as a friend?”

“As a friend, you have my blessing, though I’d imagine it would blow your cover.”

And with that, Joe left.

**2018/10/02**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm now on TUMBLR! Username: excentrykemuse (as if you couldn't guess)


	5. Part the Fifth

**Part the Fifth—  
** _“Keep my head under water / Pride buried in my chest / Not counting the minutes, the seconds / Not holding my breath / Now sinking from the surface / Swimming in my lungs / Losing my vision, religion / I’m holding my tongue”  
_ **—“High,” Whethan & Dua Lipa  
**

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had sent a note through the Embassy. Hopefully, Juliana had received it. It had been in a box of roses. He had, of course, received notice when she had become a citizen of the Greater Nazi Reich. His heart broke, but he was not without hope. His wife was ill, so ill that their son had been sent to his sister.

It would be soon.

Very soon.

He had a routine meeting at Nazi Headquarters, but he went up to the aide de camp and cancelled it. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido spoke precisely, coolly, and turned, knowing that this had to be exactly timed. A moment later the elevator doors opened and Juliana stepped out of them.

She was as beautiful as he remembered her. 

Her lush hair had been braided on both sides of her head and then put up somehow. There were hair ornaments in it. A chain of gold hugged her neck tightly with a swastika on it. She was wearing a simple but elegant dress in peacock blue, white gloves on her hands, a deep green coat making up the ensemble.

Juliana smiled at him and approached before she bowed. “Takeshi-san. I did not know you would be in the Reich. I hope your flight was uneventful.”

“Just so, Misa-chan,” he agreed. “I understand I am to congratulate you on completing your examinations.”

A shadow was cast over her blue eyes for a moment before they brightened again. 

“I am sorry, but I no longer know your name.”

A smile quirked her lips. “I am Alexa Smith—the ward of Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith,” she clarified, perhaps seeing the worry in his eyes. “It is better than ‘Jordis’, Takeshi-san. Perhaps you should not be in charge of naming anyone in the future.” She was clearly teasing him.

“You will always be ‘Misaki-chan’ to me,” he told her plainly. “I was not wrong when I gave you that name.”

There was a pause. “How is your wife? Is she feeling better?” The worry on her face seemed genuine, and perhaps it was, but Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido knew why she was asking. 

“She has declined in health, Misa-chan,” he told her. “It will not be long now. However, I have two years longer on my tour.”

Her eyebrows furrowed as she tried to make the connections. It would be difficult to marry while he was still in San Francisco given that she was a ‘race traitor’. He needed to take her back to Japan immediately. However, he simply didn’t have the power to do that. The longer he left her in the American Reich, the more likely it was that he would lose her.

“Perhaps we can discuss this over tea unless you have business in this building?”

She took a deep breath. “It can wait, Takeshi-san. It has been many months since I’ve seen a familiar face from the Pacific States.” Juliana turned and he followed her to the elevator.

They were alone and he reached for her but she shook her head. Her eyes focused on the corner and he followed her gaze to what seemed to be a black spot, which was perhaps a camera. 

“Scita,” she whispered when the elevator doors opened and he followed her out. 

They only had to walk for five minutes before she took him to a diner. He had never liked such places, but he would trust her judgment. He supposed there were no tea houses. Juliana ordered two coffees and he took off his hat.

After they were served, he calmly explained, “A General’s niece was assassinated just last week. She was Japanese.”

Juliana shivered although it was warm in the diner. “It’s not safe then—even if—”

“No,” he agreed. 

“There are signs,” she told him carefully, “that Obergruppenfuhrer Smith may want to marry me. I am pretending to be ignorant right now, but I don’t know how long I can be. My entire life, my security, depends on him. Takeshi-san,” she begged. 

“I do not see a solution at the present time,” he admitted coldly, “unless you can somehow get a visa to the Pacific States where we can be privately married, and then you return here for the rest of my tour. That, however, leaves my son without a mother.”

She took a deep breath. “He probably will not like me. I will be immediately replacing his mother and I am American, not Japanese, Takeshi-san.”

“You are my choice,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido argued. “He will see reason.”

It was clear that Juliana did not believe him, but she simply took another sip of her coffee. 

He carefully angled it so that his foot touched hers and she smiled at him over her own cup. He looked at her wrist and saw she was still wearing his bracelet. It pleased him that she hadn’t removed it during these many months away from him.

“Is there somewhere we can go?” she breathed and he nodded.

He had already found a luxurious hotel for the night. Of course, he could go to the Embassy, but he would not mark Alexa Smith as a race traitor by having her walk through the front doors. It was dangerous with the Resistance. Already if they were seen together connections could be made. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido could also easily afford a hotel and he wanted to give Juliana the comforts of life. He could not yet give her a home, but he could give her this. And he would. 

He seduced her slowly, first pouring out glasses of champagne and exchanging drugging kisses. Then undoing her hair meticulously, she clasped herself to him before unzipping the dress, which puddled to the floor. 

She sighed as he picked her up and lay her on the bed, unhooking her garters and rolling down her stockings. He kissed every inch of her exposed skin, making certain to worship her body. He had dreamt about it nearly every day of his almost sleepless nights, never satisfying himself, but always dreaming and yearning for her. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had not held her in his arms for so long, that he was almost shaking in anticipation and when his bare arms cradled her ass and angled her up against his exposed member, he kissed her deeply, swallowing up her gasps and her sighs, until he had entered her.

This was not the heated frenzy of two people who could not control themselves, but the gentle joining of two lovers who knew the other so well that neither had to speak. “Scita,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido whispered in her ear again and again with each small thrust, rubbing against her nub and causing her to whimper in pleasure. “Scita, Scita.” 

Love had not existed before he had met Juliana Crain. He had felt respect, honor, admiration, and pride, but not love. For her he thought and planned, for her he killed and plotted.

…

Juliana did not like the sensation of leaving the arms of her lover while he was sleeping. Tying up her hair so it wouldn’t get wet, she quickly took a shower and then wrote a note in Japanese, which she left on the pillow. She kissed Takeshi on the temple, marveling at how soft his face looked without his spectacles, and then slipped out the door. 

She was going to be late.

She knew she would miss dinner and Thomas might already be in bed by the time she got home. Thinking quickly, she went to the lobby and went to the public telephone. She dialed the house but found that only Thomas was there. After telling him not to wait up, she left the hotel to walk to the subway.

However, John was leaning against a government car directly in front of the hotel, dressed in his uniform and leather military trench coat, clearly waiting for her.

“I was afraid that the Chief Inspector’s visit was only a façade for his true purpose,” he greeted as she came up to him. “Is this what you want, Alexa? To be at the beck and call of some man who will see you two or three times a year before he returns to Japan? Who has a wife and child back at home no matter how sick this wife is? You know he’ll never marry you. They consider you a ‘race traitor’.”

“He will marry me,” she argued. 

“No, Alexa, he won’t,” he stated calmly and firmly. “Chief Inspector Kido will never marry you. He cannot marry you even if he wants to. The Reich won’t allow it.” Taking a deep breath, John looked at her. “You have a home here. You have a boy who can be your child if you want. You could have a husband if you choose if you can only embrace the Reich’s view on eugenics.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to,” she argued petulantly. “Perhaps I liked my life the way it was before people started trying to kill me.”

After looking at her for a long moment, he signaled to a low-ranking officer. The door was opened for her and she fluidly got in. She looked through the window up at the hotel, wondering if Takeshi was still sleeping, if he was dreaming of her, if he was imagining their future together.

“You’re throwing away a family,” John told her again, “an unparalleled place in society. Everything that happened in the Pacific States can be forgiven due to your ignorance.”

Angrily, she turned to him. “John, be honest. What you want is a pretty young wife whom you can show off. The fact that I speak Japanese fluently and know their customs means that you can bring me to almost any social function in the world. A defector just makes me interesting and perhaps even desirable.”

“What I want is your name,” he argued back, “but I can never have that. I can never hold you in my arms and whisper your name, Alexa. Instead, I’m calling you by the name of your cat! Do you know how horrifying that is to a man who desires you above all else?”

Juliana sat back and looked at him. “What about Thomas? He thinks he’s in love with me.”

“I’ll speak with Thomas,” John promised. “I’m not asking you to forget your entire life in just a few months. I’m not heartless. I’m asking for a chance, Alexa, a chance.”

She looked at him and swallowed. Then she realized something. They hadn’t used a condom. How could they have been so stupid? Closing her eyes for a moment, she looked over at John. “I don’t want anything to change,” she admitted. “I want to be Thomas’s close friend, the one he comes to when he wants to talk about his friends or doesn’t quite know how to tell you something. I want to explore this world—and you’ve been my guide so far.”

“You need more friends,” he admitted, taking her hand and kissing it. “But first there must be dancing and steak. You’re not dressed for Sullivan’s, but we’re going to get that slanted eyed bastard out of your mind.”

Full of indignation, she reminded him, “The Japanese Empire is your closest ally, Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith!”

“That they may be,” he agreed. “That doesn’t mean that every Aryan in North America wouldn’t believe that you would be a race traitor if you got out of this car and walked back into that hotel.”

Their blue eyes caught and a silent message passed between them. Nothing further would be said on the matter, but he expected it to not happen again. 

…

Arnold Walker pretended to work for the post office. His wife Anne believed it, but she had been willfully blind since her first husband had died and the Japanese had invaded. 

He wasn’t blind. He knew that Trudy had been a member of the Resistance. Arnold was also aware that she was most likely dead. He had been promised that she would be shipped off to the Neutral Zone, but a Pawn’s word was as yellow as his skin. 

Over the past few years he had caught sight of the man who was keeping Juliana, a girl whom he had raised as his own flesh and blood. It had been so strange. She had been content in her life, had met Frank, had dated him, and then one evening had gone to spend the night.

The next day he got a call at work saying she was in the hospital and would probably die. He and Anne had rushed to her side and found that a bus had somehow hit her. The driver swore she had walked out in front of it and, facing away, had spread out her arms and waited for it to just hit her. It was a miracle that she survived the night, the week, that she was ever able to walk again let alone participate in aikido.

Frank had promised to take care of her, but that didn’t last. As soon as she was able to walk, she was back home. Arnold was happy to welcome her to his house, but she didn’t offer any explanation.

Anne tried to set the two back up. Frank was eager. It was clear he was besotted with Juliana, but she politely ignored him.

Then the small gifts began to appear. It started with the tea the day Juliana returned home.

Next was a tube of lipstick, a dark red that usually the Japanese instead of Americans favored. Still, it looked enchanting on Juliana and she wore it every day. When she got her job at the Nippon Building, which was surprising, she brought it to work in her pocket and undoubtedly refreshed it during the day as it looked clean and fresh when she returned home.

Although Arnold mainly listened to code words on the wires, he kept his ear to the ground. 

Juliana had been recommended by someone in the kempeitai to the Trade Minister. She was the Aryan face to the Trade Minister’s office, greeting officials from the Reich and serving them. Then she found an apartment she would not be able to afford, as far as Arnold could tell, but she would not give anyone the exact address or allow them to visit. Soon she was wearing imported Japanese dresses with her lipstick when she wasn’t working—until the bombing. 

Arnold had been brought into questioning after that. There had been no chatter on the wires except about a ‘race traitor’ who clearly turned out to be Juliana—who had been targeted because of the Chief Inspector of the kempeitai. It appeared he was also the intended target. The Resistance had meant to send a message, a very clear one.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was a ruthless man. He killed without hesitation, delighted in ordering torture, and it seemed took Juliana to his bed. As Arnold sat directly opposite him, knowing that he was being recorded, he whispered, “They almost killed my little girl.”

“Juliana Crain,” he agreed, his voice cold and clinical. “She was one of the intended targets, myself being the other.”

“We knew there was a race traitor. Her mother and I suspected—how could we not? All those gifts—the apartment no one can find—the dresses. Anne throws her at eligible men. We’ve completely given up on Frank, especially since she got her job at the Nippon Building, and I’ve been trying to find her more cultured men who would be kind to her. She deserves kindness—but all this time I’ve suspected,” (his eyes flashed up) “and it’s true.”

“Yes,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido agreed. “It is true. You will cease with these meaningless matchmaking endeavors. They are beneath Miss Crain.”

Arnold twisted his hands. “Beneath her,” he repeated because he needed to say something. “Her association with—” he swallowed, glancing at the recording device “—almost got her killed—because she is a race traitor.”

“Are you yourself not a race traitor, Mr. Walker?” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido asked, the light glinting off of his spectacles. “You work for the kempeitai.”

“I am not a young lady who warms the bed of,” he spat, standing in his anger until he saw Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido’s impassive face. How could Juliana associate with such a heartless creature? Arnold was certain he must be forcing her in some way. He liked to believe Juliana above bribery, although he couldn’t completely disregard the idea.

“Mr. Walker,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido stated calmly. “Control yourself.”

Now, over a year later, Arnold was struggling to control himself again. He had scheduled an appointment with the Chief Inspector. He didn’t think he’d be able to see the important man given the assassination attempt of the Crown Prince of the Imperial Family, but he surprisingly was given a date over two months later.

He came into the room and saw the man sitting there, as calm as always, his desk clear of all photographs. It was unnatural. Surely the man must have a mother, a father, a wife even. 

Arnold bowed and then took a seat. “Juliana has been missing for months,” he opened. “I was wondering if perhaps you knew where she was—”

“Miss Crain,” he answered carefully, “last I knew was heading into the Neutral Zone. I could not speculate as to her reasons, Mr. Walker. I have been well informed that she is not returning.” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked down and it was then that there was a small photograph, barely larger than a thumbnail. It was Juliana’s passport photograph.

With a large intake of breath, Arnold looked at the Chief Inspector. “I see. Can you get messages to her?”

“Not as such,” he responded, looking up at him with his stern gaze. “You must understand that even in the Neutral Zone the Resistance despises race traitors.”

Moving forward, Arnold whispered—“If you married her—”

The light flashing on his spectacles once again, an unholy anger was burning behind Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido’s eyes. “Good day, Mr. Walker. I do not suggest you seek a second appointment on this subject.”

…

It was a sunny summer day. John waited in his swim shorts and t-shirt for the rest of his family. He had fallen into a comfortable rhythm with Alexa. She would go out with him when he asked her, dressed in one of her two cocktail dresses, looking beautiful with her Aryan blue eyes. He would dance with her, delighting in the jealous gazes of other officers as he showed off Alexa, and he smiled just when he caught her eye.

“Dad!” Thomas called. “Alexa has locked herself in the bathroom. I think she’s crying.”

His brows furrowing in worry, John ran up the stairs and saw Thomas waiting next to the bathroom door. He gently moved him out of the way and pressed his ear against the door. There was definitely the sound of sniffling on the other side. He knocked on the door three times. “Alexa? Are you all right? We’re ready to head to the pool.”

“Go without me!” she shouted through the door. “I’m quite fine here.”

Looking at his son, John turned back to the door. “Thomas has been so looking forward to introducing you to some of his friends. You might meet some of their older siblings—some young couples, perhaps.”

There was the sound of more sniffling.

He knocked again. “Alexa. Talk to me. It can’t be that bad.”

“It can be that bad,” she responded. “My first child was killed by a bomb that targeted me as a race traitor. My next child was lost on an operating table for family honor—and what of my third? It’s been six weeks and nothing! I missed—I missed my second—It should have come yesterday. I’m going to be put back on an operating table and my child is going to be taken from me in the name of race purity.” She broke down into sobs again on the other side of the door.

“Thomas,” John explained carefully. “You will not repeat a word of what you heard. Women are unusually emotional about such subjects, you must understand. Alexa is not thinking rationally. Go downstairs and wait for me.”

His son was looking at the door in shock.

“Thomas,” John stated a little more harshly, “there is much of the Pacific States you do not know and cannot understand. Men—force women. The Japanese force Aryans because they are desirable. Go downstairs.”

“She’s been here nearly four months—she can’t—” Thomas breathed. “How would—?”

Sometimes John wished that Thomas hadn’t taken sexual education. That course, although mandatory, was more trouble than it was worth. “Go downstairs, Thomas.”

Finally, he did what he was told.

John looked at the hall clock. It was six in the morning in the Pacific States. He knocked again. “We’re going to go back to Dr. Adler, Alexa,” he explained carefully, “and we’re going to explain that you were imposed on.”

Finally the door was unlocked and he saw her tearstained face. Her eyes, although watery, were just as brilliantly blue. “You want to take away my baby,” she accused. “Not this one. I won’t let you take this one.”

John tried not to notice that she was in a terribly flattering bikini. Now was not the time to wonder what it would be like to run his hand down the curve of her breast or what the skin along her stomach tasted like.

“The child will be Japanese. You can’t give birth to it in the Greater Nazi Reich, Alexa. I cannot have you give birth to a Japanese child in my house.”

Tears ran down her face and she looked away. 

“I’ll call Dr. Adler now.”

“No one’s going to believe that Takeshi forced himself on me.”

“Of course, they will,” he responded, brushing away a tear with his thumb. “He’s Japanese. He’s an animal as far as we’re concerned.”

After the call was made, he convinced Alexa to go to the pool with them. Sometime during the afternoon, he fell asleep reading a book. His wallet was gone when he woke up. Thomas hadn’t seen Alexa for several hours when she had gone to buy ice cream. She had simply disappeared.

…

It was eleven o’clock when there was a knock on the door. Joe looked up from the tv, a beer in his hand, and Rita got up to go see who it was.

“Hi,” Joe heard and he was immediately on his feet. “You must be Rita.”

There, standing at his door, was Alexa. Her hair was in a loose braid to the side, and she was wearing a t shirt over what was clearly a bathing suit. She had sandals on her feet and a beach bag that seemed to have a towel in it on her shoulder.

“Alexa,” he greeted, coming up behind Rita. “You must be cold. Come in.”

He led her into the den and offered her a beer, but she took a glass of water instead. Rita was looking at her suspiciously, not that Joe blamed her.

“I’m sorry,” Alexa apologized as her eyes started to tear up. She sniffed, clearly trying not to cry. “It’s just—John—Obergruppenfuhrer Smith—wants to kill my baby. I’m almost certain I’m pregnant and I can’t—I won’t—” She pressed her hands to her stomach and she sniffled. “Joe, I’ve lost two babies. One was a miscarriage because I was the target of a bombing and the second—I was made to get an abortion. I won’t do that again. I have nowhere else to go except perhaps the Imperial Embassy.”

“Why would he want to kill his own baby?” Rita asked in confusion. “I know that he probably has a wife and a family, but Aryan children are prized and he can marry you to a Sturmbannfuhrer, surely.”

Looking into Alexa’s eyes, Joe suddenly realized, “It’s the Japanese official’s child. The one who sent you that wine on V-A Day. They want you to abort it because the child is not Aryan.”

Silent tears ran down her face. Alexa didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. The truth was all too plain.

“Did he come to the American Reich?” Joe asked softly, coming over to her and taking her hand gently. “Alexa, what happened?”

Her blue eyes sought his. “Takeshi is the love of my life. His wife is dying and we’re going to try to somehow be together once she’s gone. I know it’s heartless, but happiness is within our grasp, Joe. I have to either stay in the Greater Nazi Reich, however, or go to Japan and he has two years left in his tour with the Japanese Imperial Navy. I’m not safe in the Pacific States. He smuggled me here personally and John—Obergruppenfuhrer Smith—sponsored me as a personal favor. I suppose it was some kind of professional courtesy.”

“I don’t think it was professional courtesy,” Joe murmured, thinking of how beautiful Alexa was and how Obergruppenfuhrer Smith clearly had eyes. He could have put her in a ladies’ dormitory and been done with her. “You’ll stay the night, of course, Alexa, and tomorrow we’ll decide what to do.”

“Joe,” Rita whispered harshly. “This Obergruppenfuhrer must be looking for her.”

“Well, if he looks here, we’ll turn her over,” he answered sharply. “If not, then no harm.”

He got Alexa settled on the couch in one of Rita’s nightgowns and a blanket or two, but he wasn’t surprised when he heard Rita on the telephone. Not fifteen minutes later, there was a knock on the door, and he opened it to find John Smith on the other side in his full military regalia.

Joe put his finger up to his lips and nodded over to the living room. 

Taking off his hat, Obergruppenfuhrer Smith came in and went over and looked down at Alexa. With gloved fingers he traced the line of her brow and she shifted in her sleep. With a sigh, he sat down in a chair, his eyes never leaving her sleeping form, and the night continued in silence.

Joe had no doubt that the Obergruppenfuhrer would be marrying her as quickly as possible to stake a claim on her so that this Japanese man—this phantom—could never touch her again.

**2018/10/02**


	6. Part the Sixth

**Part the Sixth—  
** _“Sometimes the greatest way to say something is to say nothing at all”  
_ **—“Say Something,” Justin Timberlake  
**

It had been a small white vitamin pill, which was new to her daily regimen, that John had given to her with her morning orange juice. The cramping had started within the hour and she had to cancel her bridge game with some of the other prominent ladies in the neighborhood. Rose put her to bed with chocolate and even brought in the radio so she could listen to Brahms.

Juliana knew what had happened. Her third child had been lost.

…

Thomas wasn’t feeling well and John was keeping something from her. Juliana would sometimes watch the boy but she could only catch bouts of tiredness and the occasional time he would become clumsy. She really didn’t understand medicine and she thought the doctor should have picked it up, but apparently he hadn’t.

She had been dull since she had lost the child. Rose had been ordered to return all gifts to the Imperial Embassy. Sometimes Juliana hadn’t even known that they had come. When her birthday came and went without any form of a phone call or a letter, she snuck out of the house at night and went to train station.

A Japanese man in a suit immediately approached and bowed to her, offering her a bouquet of roses.

“Why didn’t you come to the house?” she asked in Japanese, her confusion obvious. Taking the roses, she saw that there was a note with one word on it: scita.

“We are not welcome there, Misaki-san,” he answered coolly. “The Chief Inspector wanted to remember your birthday.”

Yes, she was twenty-five with three children lost. “Could you tell him something for me? I would write, it’s only.”

“Of course, Misaki-san.”

She paused and thought for a moment. “The first to a bomb. The second to a doctor. The third to a Nazi pill.” Her blue eyes flashed up. “I would be most appreciative.”

The man looked at her for a long time and then reached into his jacket pocket and produced a little notepad where he took notes. “I understand. He will by lunch tomorrow in the Japanese Pacific States.”

She nodded to him and smelled her roses. Takeshi knew how much she loved roses. They reminded her of the first time he had sought her out. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Juliana desperately wanted to be back in the Pacific States.

Stepping forward, she whispered, “Most honorable one, I do not know your position, but if I should need to defect again, would the Japanese government let me? I was advised to defect for my safety and I realize it is still in danger—”

“We are aware you are wanted by the Resistance though not why,” he stated calmly. “The kempeitai are not always candid. We know you are a race traitor, but we know this is a title of honor among us, Misaki-san.”

Juliana looked at him in surprise. “I don’t understand. I never knew—”

“Perhaps not here.”

She had been surprised when she was taken to quite a nice restaurant. She was dressed as a Japanese woman with a Japanese man—in the American Reich, which was a bit peculiar. The man, who had yet to identify himself, told the waiter that it was the lady’s birthday and he wished to order champagne from France, courtesy of the Imperial Embassy. He was referred to as “your excellency.”

“Surely you are not the ambassador,” she opened with as they waited, their menus discard. “Even an admiral would not send you on such an errand.”

“It was not my understanding that an admiral had.”

She looked down at her perfectly manicured fingers. “Perhaps not, excellency. Still, I admit myself perplexed. Will you please clarify the matter?”

“I am the junior ambassador. The individual in question is an old wartime comrade. I personally took the commission because I understand the importance. You understand he is a widower now.”

Her breath sucked in. “Thank you for informing me, excellency. I hope his son is well, although I understand he is in Japan.”

“Akihito is in the care of his aunt. I understand he mourns though he knew this was an eventuality.”

Juliana nodded and waited when the champagne arrived and was presented to them. When it was poured with great ceremony and she ordered the halibut, she took a sip and breathed out through her nose. “It is kind of you to celebrate my birthday, excellency. I told Obergruppenfuhrer Smith I wanted little fuss but that was because I am in a strange country and I miss home. I want rice and salted fish and sake, the sound of Japanese singing in the background. I have none of my old phonographs.”

“The last I can rectify,” he promised, after taking a sip of his own champagne. “Although you probably already know, the Obergruppenfuhrer will be displeased. I am surprised he has not destroyed your Japanese dresses.”

“I expect it daily,” she admitted. “However, they were a gift from our mutual friend.”

He nodded. “It is important that our women embody the ideals of the Empire. There are many who believe while the upper echelons of society, the nobility, our imperial family, for instance, will remain pure of blood, that is not necessarily the same for the military or our foreign service. We live among the white man, we see the strength of them along with their weaknesses. There is a certain beauty to you that some of us can see. You are a perfect example, Misaki-san. You willingly took a Japanese name until you were compelled to take a white man’s name again. You adopted our dress, our food, I understood you worked for a high level official, you were discrete in the ways of a Japanese woman, and your eyes could inspire songs.”

She blushed and lowered her head in submission.

“And I understand you studied aikido to great personal gain. You felled your opponents in every match. Do not think our mutual friend did not have your sensei make reports on your progress.”

Taking another sip of her wine, she confessed, “I was learning to play the shamisen and sing. It was to be a surprise for our mutual friend. I cannot practice here, of course, and there will probably not be a chance for me to display any skill I might gain. You must understand that I did everything to make him comfortable in my home.”

“Everything but give your cat a Japanese name,” the junior ambassador noted.

Juliana laughed. “I had thought of ‘Ayase’,” she admitted, “but then the veterinarian told me the poor creature was a female and I was rather caught off guard. I decided to name the cat after a great emperor. I thought it might be fitting.”

He inclined his head to her.

“We are being observed.”

She did not move her gaze from him. “Then we are most likely being recorded. It is best to pretend we don’t notice. They’ll know when they replay the tapes that we are entirely aware, excellency. We can speak of pleasantries, of our mutual friend in the broadest of terms, of Japan even, and celebrate my birthday.”

“May I ask, Misaki-san,” he questioned as their meals were served, “how many years have you?”

She laughed again as she picked up her fork, wishing for chopsticks. “Twenty-five. It’s quite horrible. I should be married with children. I almost had children, but it was impossible given the situation, junior ambassador.”

“Perhaps not in the future,” he suggested as a complimentary bottle of soy sauce was placed on the table to Juliana’s delight. “I do not know your name here in the American Reich. I was given your Japanese name, your address, your general movements, and a photograph of you drinking tea with our mutual friend.”

Juliana smiled to herself. “I am quite fond of that photograph. I have a copy of it here in my room at Obergruppenfuhrer Smith’s house. I paid a member of my aikido class to take it for me. I am Alexa Smith. Alexa for the cat our mutual friend gave me for an earlier birthday. The Obergruppenfuhrer was kind enough to give me his name when he accepted me into his household.”

“Perhaps he wishes it to be permanent?” he suggested. He played with his rice. The junior ambassador had also ordered the fish, which came on a bed of rice. “Or, perhaps, he wishes to make a beneficial alliance through marriage and you have become the only marriageable daughter in his family.”

She chewed her food for several long moments, thinking of her answer. “He accepted my past for what it was, but he is not tolerant of my continued association with Japanese officials, especially our mutual friend.”

“That is unfortunate,” the junior ambassador returned. “You could be an asset.”

Juliana glanced at him. He was younger than Takeshi, perhaps not by much, and his face was certainly not as harsh, but there was a firmness to him. He was pleasant enough to be a diplomat, but certainly not one to cross.

“I was in the employ of a high-ranking official in the Nippon Building before I defected. I was the face of the white man. My duties were to greet Nazi officials so that they would feel more comfortable in the Pacific States, as well as serve them. It was not an arduous position, but it was important.”

He paused and put down his fork, looking at her. “You must have found the dichotomy of your life interesting. Outside of your work, you were encouraged to be as Japanese as possible, and yet at the Nippon Building you were to be the embodiment of the white man.”

She grimaced. “The irony was not lost on me. However, my employer was a good and spiritual man. I held a great respect for him. I still hold a great respect for him. I regret leaving his employ without giving an explanation or informing him of my gratitude. I am certain he—knew—of my life outside of the Nippon Building, but he treated me as an autonomous individual, on my own merits, and I appreciated that.”

The junior ambassador regarded her and then returned to his food. “I would offer my services but it would perhaps be prudent that he know nothing other than that you disappeared.”

“Yes,” she agreed, sipping her champagne. “It is perhaps wise. Sometimes I think I will see him in an official capacity but I think that his position is not likely to bring me into contact with him.” She smiled. “He would most likely address me incorrectly and say something about how his Chi told him that we would meet again.”

“Chi,” the junior ambassador mused. “Yes, there are many who practice that particular art. I myself am a practitioner.”

“Indeed,” she murmured as she finished her meal. “I myself have never learned its secrets. I did not wish to know the future perhaps before it came to pass. Perhaps I would still be in my apartment with my cat if I had followed its wise teachings.”

“Perhaps you would,” the junior ambassador concurred, “but then I would not have the pleasure of your company on your birthday.”

Juliana leaned in. “Is it true there are geisha clubs with women of the white man in the Pacific States? Our mutual friend wouldn’t tell me. He would go to business meetings and come back smelling of perfume and in an infernally bad mood.”

This finally brought a laugh to the junior ambassador, rich and full and deep. “Misaki-san, you surprise me. There are geisha houses that employ women of the white man. They are there for conversation. They sing in your American way, which I find most unpleasurable. I find them most tedious with their conversation. At least they usually know when to be silent and when to pour our whiskey and sake. I have known our mutual friend since the war. He has always been an honorable and loyal man. I doubt he likes the attention of a woman trying to speak to him unless he is interrogating her across a table in a darkly lit room.”

Raising her eyebrows, Juliana chuckled.

“You being a notable exception, of course, Misaki-san. I can tell from this short conversation that it is engaging, even if we are being recorded and are sticking to a script by necessity.—Indulge the junior ambassador to the American Reich. However did you meet?”

“Are you certain this should be recorded?”

“Did he bring you in for questioning?” he asked seriously and she laughed.

“Hardly.” The waiter came and refreshed their glasses and she took another sip. “It was simple really. My mother favors this particular Japanese tea, which must be imported. Our soil can’t grow one of the ingredients. There is this small little tea importer that sells it. I stopped in one day in hopes that they had a new shipment, and they had just enough left for about ten pots. I was just about to make the purchase when our mutual friend entered. Given his status in the Pacific States, my transaction was suspended in his favor, and he requested the same tea. 

“I immediately yielded it to him as he said it reminded him of home and his mother always made it before she died. 

“A few days later he sought me out with the tea. I believe there had been another shipment. I invited him to stay for a cup, so that we might enjoy it together—and then he sought me out again, this time after my aikido lesson and he invited me to a tea shop to try another blend he had enjoyed as a boy. That’s how it began: with tea.” She smiled at the memory.

The junior ambassador paused. “I had not thought our mutual friend a sentimental man.”

“There is an American phrase, which I think fits our mutual friend: still waters run deep.”

The junior ambassador assessed her for a long moment. Then he took out his notepad and ripped a page from it, handing it to her. She looked down and saw the name of an individual on it and the address of the Japanese Embassy. 

“I was worried,” he stated, sipping his champagne, “that our mutual friend was enamored, and that you were taking advantage of his kindness and truly believed in Aryan superiority. I know if I ask you straight out, you will espouse such ideals. Of course, you would. You are a citizen of the American Reich and it is expected. We are also being recorded and I have no doubt that you are so convincing that there is little doubt that people will be unable to prove you do not believe exactly what you say.

“However, Misaki-san, I believe you could be a great asset to diplomacy between the Reich and the Japanese Empire. There is great honor in the position you will be given if you present yourself to this individual tomorrow. I will state that Alexa Smith has passed both her preliminary or in depth interview.”

She stared at him. “Are you saying, excellency, that my birthday dinner was a job interview for, well, I’m not certain what?” She took a deep breath. “Can I trust you to honor the words I said at the train station?”

“I will honor the words,” he promised. “The one, the two, and the three.” He drained his glass and signaled the waiter.

Juliana was surprised when a bottle of sake, on ice, was brought out and her eyes widened. 

“Now we celebrate.” Two short glasses were brought out and the junior ambassador poured two glasses and they lifted them up and shot them back. 

She gasped at the smooth taste and put down her glass. 

“Tell me, Misaki-san, what do you do with your days?”

“It started with shopping for proper clothing, seeing a Nazi doctor. I found that highly unpleasant. There was a great deal of concern about my fertility. Now I spend my days riding the trains and going to Central Park or playing bridge with other Nazi ladies. There’s the Nazi Women’s League, of course, and I help Thomas—Obergruppenfuhrer Smith’s son—with his homework, not that I understand most of it.”

“Our sources say you spend the evenings in the Smith home or the Obergruppenfuhrer takes you to dinner or events. Was I correct in saying that he wishes to make you his wife?”

“Are you suggesting I should accept despite our entire previous conversation?” Juliana’s voice held a sliver of hostility in it although it was otherwise pleasant.

The junior ambassador, nonetheless, seemed to understand. “On the contrary.—May I see your wrist? I have heard that this particular bracelet saved your life.”

She smiled at the memory and brought her wrist up to her face, where she touched the Japanese sun, before extending it. 

Reaching for it, the junior ambassador turned it in his hand until he saw the white medallion hidden between the links, the red dot of the Japanese sun with the outstretched rays. “It is beautifully crafted, Misaki-san.” He turned it over and his eyes rose. “You are aware there is an inscription.”

She smiled. Juliana had noticed it barely a week after the bombing. In Japanese characters it read: Takeshi.

“I am well aware,” she returned. “I have always believed it to be entirely appropriate. Do you not agree, junior ambassador?”

“I find I do, Misaki-san. It is a thoughtful gift and a warning, of course.” To other men, he meant.

“I doubt it is seen as such in the American Reich, if it’s noticed at all. No one has commented on it, though they may now.”

The junior ambassador looked at her. “Not a warning, perhaps, but they’ll certainly get the message once they do notice it. I trust you will go to the address if you are able tomorrow, Misaki-san.” He poured another glass of sake.

“We should have had this with dinner,” she mused happily as they saluted each other and drank down their glasses before slamming them back down on the tables. “I haven’t done this in an age.”

“Well,” the junior minister commented, “we must ensure you can walk at the end of this.”

“Did you notice, junior minister?” she laughed. “I’m wearing these bizarre contraptions known as go-go boots. It will be easier to walk than if I were in heels. Keep them coming. A girl’s only twenty-five once.”

And he poured them another glass.

…

The roses appeared on the dining table before John made it down to breakfast. He had been up almost all night. He had heard movement in the house at about eleven o’clock. John believed that Alexa was just restless as it was her birthday. She hadn’t said exactly how old she was, but she had not been herself since she had lost her child—since she had been forced to have an abortion.

She didn’t want any wine. She didn’t want a cake. She didn’t want a special meal. She just wanted an ordinary day.

John hadn’t even told Thomas it was Alexa’s birthday. Now, she was moving about and when she disappeared in her coat and go-go boots, this strange fashion that had come out of the former British Empire, he thought she had gone for a walk. When two hours passed, he called Erich and had her followed.

He waited until four in the morning when she finally arrived home, swaying on her feet, roses in her hands.

He was only grateful when the tapes arrived after she had gone to bed in that horrible Japanese dress, that it appeared she had only gone out to dinner with the Japanese Junior Ambassador. He listened to the tapes in horror. He knew she was unhappy, but not to this extent. Now she seemed to have gotten herself a position at the Embassy and she was passing secret love notes to the Chief Inspector. 

The seemingly innocent bracelet on her wrist was also not quite so innocent.

He breathed in deeply and waited for Rose to serve them. 

Alexa did turn up in a Japanese dress, her hair down around her shoulders, thin slipper shoes on her feet. She looked a little worse for wear. 

“You look,” Thomas began as he was eating his cereal, “Why are you dressed like that, Alexa?”

“I was invited to the Japanese Embassy, Thomas,” she said with a tired smile. “Oh, good, coffee.”

“It must have been all the sake you were drinking,” John stated pleasantly. “It gives you the worst headaches, I understand.”

Alexa didn’t look remotely surprised, she simply poured herself a black cup and then drank it down thirstily. She didn’t touch food. It would probably turn her stomach, John thought to himself. It sounded like she had quite a bit to drink on the tapes and her speech was even a bit slurred at the end. At least the junior ambassador had offered to get her a cab. The yellow monkey was at least aping the manners of Aryan gentlemen.

“Where are the flowers from?” Thomas now asked.

“The Japanese,” John answered before Alexa could. “Yesterday was Alexa’s birthday. She chose not to celebrate it here in the Smith household, although that seemed not to be the case when she went out last night.”

“I did not plan to celebrate my birthday, John,” she told him plainly. “However, when a high-ranking diplomat offers you roses at the train station and then suggests dinner, you tend not to refuse. I’m programmed to agree to anything a Japanese official requests—usually within reason. Sometimes outside of reason when force is threatened, but that’s why you keep your head down.”

“Did you keep your head down?” Thomas asked. “Something must have happened if you defected.”

“I served the Japanese government diligently,” she told Thomas kindly as she started in on her second cup of coffee and then smiled at Rose when she gave her a poached egg and bacon. “It was the Resistance that caused the problem.”

“The Resistance has been quashed in the American Reich.”

Alexa exchanged a look with John. They both knew that wasn’t quite true. “So I understand,” she answered instead. “It is definitely safer for me here. No one’s trying to assassinate me.”

Thomas seemed happy with this answer.

“This job position,” John began, “are you going to take it?”

“I don’t know what it is,” she admitted. “I’ve only been given a name. Perhaps my duties will be similar as they were in the Pacific States. I will be the face of the white man.” She shrugged. “I honestly don’t know.”

He put down his knife and fork. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t like playing ‘housewife’,” she argued. “I prefer being useful.”

John looked at her. “If you prefer being useful, I can get you a job at the Reich Library perhaps or as a teacher’s aide. Give me a few days and I will find something suitable. I know you are a young woman who is used to keeping busy. I respect that, Alexa. Aryan women weren’t allowed to be housewives in the Pacific States as is their proper place. Until we are married—”

This was the wrong thing to say.

Thomas dropped his spoon and Juliana stilled, just staring at him.

“When you’re feeling better, of course,” he tried to amend, “after your ordeal.” That was one way to speak of a forced abortion. 

She set down her coffee cup. “John, that was a very unromantic proposal.”

“Are you waiting for whatever is around your wrist?” he asked instead, just as calmly, chewing his sausage. His blue eyes held hers, but then she glanced down at her wrist, fingering the bracelet.

She didn’t answer. Instead she simply blotted her lips and went up the stairs. She came down two minutes later, her lips that strange color red, and she put on her green coat with a swastika pinned on the lapel. Without looking back, she walked out the door, turning in the direction of the train station.

**2018/10/03**


	7. Part the Seventh

**Part the Seventh—  
** _“With my feelings on fire / Guess I’m a bad liar”  
_ **—“Bad Liar,” Selena Gomez  
**

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was sitting at his desk, looking over a file on a new film that had surfaced. It seemed a Lemuel Washington was of interest. He had been living in the Neutral Zone for several years but had relocated to the Pacific States. Lemuel Washington was a man of color. This was enough to bring him in for questioning.

He signed the order.

Now the kempeitai just had to find that rat.

The telephone rang.

On the second ring, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido picked up and answered shortly. A familiar voice came over the line. “The first to a bomb,” the junior ambassador told him plainly. “The second to a doctor. The third to a Nazi pill.”

A pain seared through Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido’s chest. There had been a third child from the night spent together when he had gone to the Greater Nazi Reich. He had been careless in their passion, and Juliana had suffered for it. “I understand,” he stated.

“Misaki-san,” his comrade-in-arms continued, “is coming in for employment today. If you can avoid the man who wishes to marry her, I’m certain I can arrange what you desire on Japanese soil.”

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked down at the small photograph he had of Juliana. “You cannot deny that it would not be dangerous, excellency.”

“There would be risk,” he agreed. “She would continue to live under the Obergruppenfuhrer’s protection until a time when I would have to take her under mine and she would live under my roof. She would become more suspect than she already is and would be unable to leave the embassy, you understand, until you leave for Japan in over a year.—Are you certain this is what you want?” The junior ambassador was now speaking as a friend, not as a comrade or a diplomat. He genuinely wanted to know.

Taking a deep breath, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido explained, “Misaki-san is eminently suitable for the position. Do we not always strive to be as Western as possible? She strikes the perfect harmony of both the East and the West.”

“Indeed,” the junior ambassador agreed. “I observed that when I took her to dinner for her birthday last night. I am afraid Nazi informants recorded us, but she was pleasant company. I even had the pleasure of having an excellent teacher in the art of Western dance.”

Pinched eyes behind his glasses stemmed tears at his own memories. “Yes,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido admitted. “Misaki-san is an exemplary teacher in the art.” Changing the subject, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido asked, “You have the package?”

“I did not want to give it to her in public in case it was observed,” the junior ambassador admitted. “It will be given into her possession when she comes in today. Of course, she may have to remove it when she leaves the Embassy, but it is a symbol—albeit Western—of your intent.”

“Thank you, excellency,” he stated, glancing at his door and seeing that someone was coming. “I fear I must end our conversation.”

“I will put in a request for your presence at our embassy,” the junior ambassador promised before hanging up.

Putting down the telephone, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido now knew he had only to wait. He would soon be a married man, his wife a continent away. Still, Juliana would lie in his arms when he could reach her and in a year and a half he would take her to Japan, to a larger world which he could give her.

They only had to wait. Just a little longer.

…

Juliana walked up to the Embassy and was directed to the third floor. Men in suits looked at her in curiosity as she walked past them, her head held high. When she came to the appropriate office, she knocked and slid the two doors open, coming through and bowing.

“Alexa Smith,” the man behind the desk guessed, indicating a seat. “We have been expecting you.”

“I am gratified,” she responded, turning and sliding the doors closed. “I should inform you that I speak fluent Japanese.”

“Yes,” he agreed, switching into that language. “I was made aware by the junior ambassador. You have impressed him along with his contacts in the Pacific States. You also are the ward of an Obergruppenfuhrer.”

“I know little of his work,” she apologized. “The Greater Nazi Reich still baffles me although I passed my ACT.”

“Indeed,” he agreed. “It confuses many of us.—Still, we want you to study the laws of the Reich. Then we want you to sit in on interrogations of defectors and traitors, Miss Smith. We are hoping that you can give us a white man’s insight as well as have the finesse of one who grew up under the Japanese.”

She inclined her head.

“This is confidential.”

“Of course, sensei,” she agreed immediately. “I know how to keep my counsel.”

He looked at her for a long moment. “As I am told.” He opened up a drawer. “I understand the official who made you his mistress now wishes to marry you. This is a token of his intent.”

Juliana stared at this man whose name she did not even know. This was even more peculiar than the proposal she received that morning over the breakfast table. Taking a deep breath, she reached out and opened the envelope. In it was a large ring with a blue opal in it. The gold of the band swirled from the top and the bottom to hold it in place before coming to the middle on either side for the band.

“You wear it,” the man informed her, “on the middle finger of your right hand to disguise its true intent, Miss Smith.—I must see you put it on your finger to report to my superiors that you accept the proposal of marriage.”

Smiling, she placed it on her trembling finger and admired it for a moment. “I fear it may still be noticed.”

The man didn’t comment, instead he took her in. “You wear a Japanese dress. How many do you have?”

“Five,” she answered. “You must understand, I was smuggled out of the Pacific States without any warning. I also fear the Obergruppenfuhrer will grow tired of indulging me and will confiscate the dresses at any time.”

He just looked at her. “You will present yourself in these dresses while they are in your possession with your hair appropriately bound. You have a Japanese name, I understand?”

“Misaki,” she answered, looking down at her ring, which was gleaming on her hand, which itself was resting in her lap. 

There was a moment of silence while he took her in. “You will be issued a pass with both names on it before you leave. You are now Japanese, Misaki-san, you must understand. I expect your marriage will occur shortly, although you will be remaining in the American Reich. I have not been told the particulars.” The man looked down and began to write something down, most likely instructions for her pass. Juliana wasn’t entirely certain.

“Take this to the fourth floor,” he informed her. “Go to the library for the rest of the week and report back to me on Monday. Welcome to the Embassy, Misaki-san.”

Juliana stood and bowed to him respectfully. “Thank you for this opportunity.”

“Prove yourself, Misaki-san. You are in a unique position.” 

She bowed again and then left the room. Juliana had studying to do. A smile tugged at her lips. She was engaged to be married. Twirling as she walked down the hall, she realized that all of her dreams were finally coming true.

…

Joe was just leaving for an afternoon shift at work when there was a knock on the door. He opened it, Rita was fortunately in the kitchen, and he was surprised to see a smiling Alexa in an Asian style dress, her hair unbound and around her shoulders.

“I can’t tell you why,” she told him quickly, “but I’m so happy that I just had to share it with someone.”

He blinked at her and let her in. “Okay. I’m assuming it’s not your guardian.”

She was twirling, her coat flying around her, but she suddenly stopped. “No,” Alexa stated. “John stated at the breakfast table that we were getting married. He didn’t even ask. He’s a bit angry that I went out last night and had dinner with the Junior Ambassador of the Imperial Embassy. I might have gotten a bit drunk on sake.”

“Sake?” Rita asked as she came in.

“Rice wine,” she replied, smiling again. “John had us recorded and kept on dropping jibes at the breakfast table. Then he announces we’re getting married, like I said. But I don’t want to think about it. I want to think about how happy I am.”

Joe laughed when she spun herself around, arms held wide, and sat down on the sofa.

“I need to sufficiently express my happiness by dinnertime tonight so no one can tell.”

“Well,” Joe stated slyly, coming around to her. “Let me take you for a good old milkshake in the city where you can gush about nothing at all. We should arrive for an early lunch, and I can guess what it is.”

Rita pursed her lips in annoyance and went back into the kitchen. Joe suspected she’d be making yet another telephone call once they were gone. He really had to move out.

He quickly went and grabbed his jacket and a couple of dollars, though he suspected that Alexa had much more on her and wouldn’t begrudge him a few quarters if he didn’t quite have enough, and they left. When they were sitting on the subway, her coat buttoned up because of the cold and probably to hide her Japanese style dress which was completely out of place in the American Reich, he put an arm around her and just smiled to himself.

For a moment he could pretend that Alexa was his. He was aware that she was out of his league, that men greater and better than him were pursuing her and now had even proposed marriage, that she was desperately in love with a government official back in the Pacific States—and then it clicked. Something had happened with this faceless Japanese man. Of course, she couldn’t tell anyone. In a place that prized the purity of Aryan blood, her affair with a Jap was completely unacceptable and could have her severely punished. She was expected to marry an Aryan man. She was expected to bear his children.

Somehow Joe knew Alexa would fight with her very being before she let that happen.

And a part of him was falling in love with her, this strong girl who was holding on to everything she believed in and had only come into his life because her very life was threatened.

“What’s his name?” he asked as they walked through the streets. “It’s him, isn’t it? The father of your child?”

“They took away my baby,” she told him sadly. “John gave me a pill that he told me was a vitamin for the child and an hour later I had lost it. He called it a bad reaction, but I know what it was.”

He hooked an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. “I’m sorry, Alexa. I know you never could have brought a child—with such ancestry—into the Reich, but it was your child. My mother always said the bond between a mother and child was the strongest on earth.—So, what’s his name?”

“I’m not certain it’s safe,” she admitted. “He gave me the name ‘Alexa’ in a way. For my birthday he gave me a cat, and in a roundabout way the cat was named ‘Alexa’ and when I suddenly needed a name—”

“You chose ‘Alexa’,” he laughed. “Where’s Alexa the cat, now?”

“With him,” she told him with a smile. “Alexa had a habit of trying to sleep on him. She was quite the bane of his existence. Naturally, he claimed he wasn’t remotely sentimental, but it was the little things that proved differently—such as taking Alexa for me.”

“Maybe he’ll send Alexa the cat,” Joe mused. “He’s obviously done something to make you happy.”

“Do you see John allowing a cat in his perfectly ordered house?” she asked incredulously, turning to him. “Joe, I can’t imagine anything more ridiculous.” 

He laughed. “Then poor Mr. Government is stuck with your cat, pining for you. Your ‘John’ is pining for you and you’re right under his roof, presiding over his table—”

“I don’t preside over John Smith’s table,” she stated dismissively, though Joe knew that the reality was quite different, “no more than I presided over—” Alexa paused. “Well, that just wasn’t an option.”

Something gleamed in her eyes and Joe stopped in the middle of the street. “But you will!” he stated in shock. “You’ll be—” He came close to her and whispered, “Alexa, how is that possible? Important men don’t just marry their mistresses no matter how much they love them.”

“The Fuhrer married his mistress,” she stated dismissively, as she continued walking, a skip in her step.

When he came up to her, she continued:

“There was Edward VIII of Great Britain. He married his mistress.”

“And he abdicated the throne!” Joe pointed out. “Is this—man,” he whispered, “abdicating his position? Is he going to take you back to—well, is he?”

Alexa frowned. “Questions, questions. You’re not even supposed to know. Do you want to see the ring?” She held up her right hand of all things and showed him this gaudy stone that wasn’t even remotely Western. He supposed that was the point.

He didn’t say anything and they kept walking until they came to the diner. After they ordered at the counter he finally asked, “True love?”

“True love,” she agreed. “I never expected to find it—where I found it. I never expected to find it at all.”

“No,” he agreed. “I imagine it would have been strange to—well. Don’t they keep the American populace in poverty and in check?”

“It’s different there. Here, everyone became a Nazi. The vast majority of people had some form of Aryan blood and those who didn’t were kept as foot soldiers. They were placed in service of the Reich but not allowed to breed. For us, we were an entirely different race of people. We couldn’t even pretend to be Japanese. Our cultures were so different that no one could integrate. The Japanese became our overlords. The Germans aren’t your overlords. John is the highest ranking official in New York City—in the greater northeast—and he’s American. An American would never be given any form of power in the Pacific States. We’re not Japanese.”

“Then what are you, Alexa?” he asked honestly. “How do you fit in?”

“I’m sympathetic to their culture. I found a peace and harmony in their philosophy that I couldn’t in the American way of life. It was one step further to become friends with my aikido classmates. Another step to start eating primarily Japanese foods. Another step to befriend a government official, then to accept his admiration and gifts. To go further… to fall in love.”

“To marry,” he concluded. Joe took in a deep breath. “You wanted his children.”

“Desperately,” she agreed. “Have you ever wanted children, Joe?”

Looking at his hands, Joe then glanced up into Alexa’s bluer than blue eyes. “I’m fond of Buddy. He’s the best thing in my life. It’s why I can’t leave Rita. I won’t lose the only son I’ve ever had. My father abandoned me and I won’t do that to him.”

She looked at him sadly and took his hand. “I wouldn’t wish that for you, Joe,” she commiserated. “I wish you light and happiness and a family all your own.”

Later he would say that madness came over him. He was looking into her beautiful blue eyes, so full of emotion. Joe knew that she belonged to another man, that she was the fiancée of a yellow-skinned monkey, that Obergruppenfuhrer Smith wanted her and had warned him away, but he leaned in and kissed her.

For a moment it was sweet and present, but then she slapped him and pushed him away and onto the floor.

“Joe!” she admonished. “What are you thinking? I’m engaged! You’re with another woman!”

He looked around and saw that almost the entire diner was looking at him, including several low ranking officers. This would certainly get back to Obergruppenfuhrer Smith. “I’m sorry, Alexa. I quite lost my head.”

“You lost your head?” she asked. “The last time someone lost their head around me, the Chief Inspector of the kempeitai had them investigated and he was executed!”

He grinned. “I know you have always had friends in high places, but I don’t think that is going to happen in the American Reich.”

This at least brought a smile to her face. “Well, the person in question was a Semite,” she admitted. “It was only a matter of time.”

He got up and slid back in next to her. “I don’t have that problem.”

“I suppose not,” she laughed. “I think this entire diner knows I’m getting married. We should celebrate!”

Joe looked at her suspiciously. “I thought you celebrated with the junior ambassador last night.”

“I celebrated my birthday last night. I wasn’t engaged until this morning.” 

Two strawberry milkshakes appeared before them and Alexa smiled.

Lowering his voice, Joe asked. “So, how’d it happen?”

“I was handed an envelope and told to put the ring on my finger as a sign of my acceptance so that a positive message could be relayed back to the Pacific States,” she told him just as lowly.

His eyebrows rose. “That may be the worst proposal I’ve ever heard of. Seriously, you think there would be—more.” Such as a note. Or a telephone call. Something.

“The last time someone tried to be romantic,” she then explained, “there was an assassination attempt, Joe. I’d rather not have a repeat performance.”

…

Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith was in a rather good mood. Erich had come in from lunch at a quaint diner he favored and said that Alexa had been there with Joe Blake of all people. They had been discussing something quietly when he had kissed her and she had pushed him out of their booth, declaring that the last time someone had tried to make an advance on her, they had been executed. John, frankly, didn’t doubt it considering her position as Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido’s mistress.

However, she had then declared, in outrage, that she was engaged. And, when all had been forgiven between the two, they had gone on to celebrate with milkshakes and talk of the worst of proposals.

It had been the worst way to propose, he admitted to himself. He hadn’t even thought in the moment that he had yet to propose, only that he had planned for so many months to marry her that he was already taking it as rote. 

Thomas had been devastated, and he had to talk to him briefly before he left for school, promising that they would continue their conversation when they were both home that night.

John had been afraid he had set back the progress he had made with Alexa with his comment—but clearly he had said exactly what she had needed to hear. Perhaps she had just needed an hour or two to process it. 

Now he needed to pick out a ring, but perhaps he would take her out on Saturday and she could choose what she wanted.

…

Juliana had changed into a yellow dress, her hair still down, when Thomas arrived home. He looked at her for a moment and immediately ran up to his room. Confused for a moment, she then realized why he was upset.

“Thomas!” she called. When he didn’t respond, she took the stairs two at a time. When she glanced down, she saw Rose looking up at her, but she just continued.

Knocking on his door, she called, “Thomas! Please let me in. Don’t shut me out over a misunderstanding. Please. I am, and will always be, your friend.”

There was a long moment and then the door opened. She saw Thomas on the other side and she sighed. 

“Come in.”

She went in and hugged him. It took him a moment to hug her back and then she led him to the bed where they sat down. “Tell me exactly what’s worrying you,” she asked him. “Let’s work this out. I know things have been—different for the past month and a half since I was ill that morning.”

“Since you lost the baby,” he murmured.

Juliana startled. She hadn’t realized he knew. “Yes,” she agreed.

He looked up at her. “Dad said a filthy Jap forced himself on you but that women get attached to their young no matter who fathers them. Is that true?”

“I—” She was floored. “I don’t know if the second half of that is true. I have certainly been attached to my children when they were in the womb. As to the father, your father had no right to pass judgment on what was a private matter.”

“Dad said he couldn’t be prosecuted because he has diplomatic immunity.”

Once again, Juliana just stared at him. “This is not an appropriate topic of conversation, Thomas. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just that—that—is a matter between me and the father of my child.”

Thomas’s face was full of righteous indignation, but he nodded. “Dad still wants to marry you.”

“Yes,” she agreed quietly.

“Even though your Aryan womb has been violated.”

Juliana looked up at the ceiling in desperation and took a deep breath. “That is a matter between your father and his conscience, I imagine. I really haven’t discussed it at length with him.” That isn’t to say that he hadn’t berated her, but she had known when she stepped out of that hotel that night that John had still wanted her. It was a terrible mess.

“He should be prosecuted, this Jap,” Thomas was saying. 

Hoping to get him to be quiet, she told him, “In the Pacific States, Semites and Negros are shot for such offences. I don’t know if it’s the same here. I really don’t want to know.”

“What happens to Aryans and Japs?” Thomas asked, his eyes big and curious. 

She looked at him and smiled slightly. “The white man is put in prison for two years if it’s a woman of the white man. If it’s a Japanese woman he is executed. A Japanese man is reprimanded if it is anyone other than a Japanese woman. Then it’s a case by case basis.”

“They’re savages,” he concluded. 

“It’s a different society,” she told him, “and they are our allies. It is best to understand them, Thomas, if you are to be an officer, so that you can have more fruitful negotiations and relations with them. Remember that. One of the reasons why your father is so successful is because he is able to understand the nuances of Japanese culture, or so I imagine.”

The open door creaked open a bit farther, and Juliana looked up to see John leaning against it. “Listen to Alexa, Thomas. She is a very wise woman.”

Thomas looked up and smiled.

“Has she informed you that she has accepted my proposal—in front of several witnesses in a diner, no less?” John’s eyes twinkled.

The bottom of Juliana’s stomach dropped out. She knew exactly what he was speaking about: the moment she pushed Joe onto the ground and declared herself engaged. She meant Takeshi. Juliana could shoot herself. There had been several low-ranking officers there and they must have heard.

“I was in shock,” she stated quickly. “He had just kissed me.”

Thomas’s head swiveled to her.

John’s eyes, however, never left her. “I think it was more than just shock,” he reasoned. “You went on to describe my proposal as ‘the worst.’”

“Those were his words,” she defended. “I can’t help it if he rates proposals.”

“Well, I know there was that one in the Pacific States you refused just before you were pushed in front of a bus in retaliation,” he stated casually. “I’ve seen photographs of the scars.”

Juliana remembered that story. Taking a deep breath, she admitted, “You do realize that that particular explanation is fabricated? It was much worse.”

John Smith didn’t look remotely surprised. “What could possibly be worse? Was it an assassination attempt?”

She just hummed in response.

Thomas took her hand in support and John looked down at their joined hands. “Good. Perhaps you can start calling Alexa ‘Mother’, Thomas. I’m sure she would appreciate it, especially given the fact that she has lost children of her own. We’ll get the ring on Saturday, Alexa.”

“Oh,” she said, surging forward and releasing Thomas’s hand. “I don’t want a ring. We—we don’t have them in the Pacific States.”

“This is the American Reich,” he argued. “Of course, you will have a ring.”

She grabbed his arm. “I couldn’t,” she begged. “It would seem like bragging and—I—well—perhaps this is ill-advised. I don’t want to marry without love.” She bit her lip and looked up at him.

“Nonsense,” he argued. “You’re supposed to brag. It’s your right.” He kissed her forehead and walked away.

Juliana turned around and looked at Thomas desperately.

It was only later when she was coming down to dinner that she realized John had never said anything about love at all.

**2018/10/03**


	8. Part the Eighth

**Part the Eighth—** __  
“You’ve been creeping round on me / While you’re calling me ‘baby’”  
**—“How Long,” Charlie Puth  
**

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was Juliana Crain’s emergency contact. It was not necessarily standard procedure for ranking officials and their mistresses, but Kido insisted on providing for Juliana as much as he was able. He did not trust her parents. They were the white man, after all.

He was first aware of an explosion in the city when a file was placed on his desk. The officer looked at him and explained. “A race traitor, Chief Inspector. You might be particularly interested.”

Flipping it open, he saw the name of the building and his heart sped up as he turned the page to look at a layout and the placement of the bomb. Someone had gotten into the airshaft that led into Juliana’s apartment. It appeared they couldn’t open up the grate, but they had left the bomb two feet from the entrance and had given themselves enough time to escape.

Glancing out the window, he saw it was dark and then he looked at the clock. It was six thirty, about the time that Juliana would be making dinner. It was Tuesday. She would be making it for him and he had not telephoned to inform her he would be late. In fact, he had been planning on leaving within the next few minutes.

Without looking back at his subordinate, he turned back to the file and flipped through the pages. “There is no list of casualties,” he noted. “With the placement of the bomb, this is obviously a political attack.”

The officer bowed. “My thought exactly, Chief Inspector.”

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido stood and went for his coat. “It appears we have work to do.” Just as he opened the door, his telephone rang and he turned to pick it up. He listened for less than half a minute. Juliana had been recovered. She was safe and only had minimal scrapes and bruises. 

He would learn when he spoke to her briefly the next day that she had gone out for more duck sauce as she had run out and had been just entering the building when the bomb went off. By that time, the Security Services had been alerted that the Chief Inspector’s ‘niece’ had been the target, a building had been chosen, and all young women associated with government officials were being moved into it for their safety.

Not three hours later, Juliana stepped in holding her cat, Alexa, who had surprisingly survived the blast, and looked at the empty space. There was a mat on the floor for sleeping but nothing else.

“Well,” she commented, turning. “I can work with this.”

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked at her with obvious affection, although his voice came out dispassionately. “I have faith in your capabilities, Juliana. You are a woman of many talents. Promise me that you will tell me what you may need.”

“I have a little saved by,” she promised. “I do indulge my parents. I try to give Trudy small gifts—”

“Your sister,” he answered coldly, knowing she had suspicious contacts, “is not worth your time, Juliana. I wish you would listen to me.”

“Takeshi-san,” she murmured, setting down her cat and coming up to him. She took his lapels and rested her forehead against his. “It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s only that she is my sister. It’s a bond that is not easily broken.”

He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her waist. “She called you a ‘race traitor’ on the wire.”

“If that’s all,” she whispered. “I’ve been called worse, I’m sure.”

For a moment, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido let his fears take over him. He was afraid of what would happen to Juliana when his tour was over in three and a half years. Sometimes three and a half years seemed like a long time in this horrible place. Then he would hold Juliana in his arms, and he would realize that anything less than an eternity with her was unacceptable. 

“They are as bad as the Nazis,” he sneered, but still he held her close, “with their belief in a Master Race. The Germans look down upon us even though we were their allies during the war. You Americans look down on us. Our Emperor is descended from the sun itself, Misaki-chan. How is it only you can see this?”

“Hush,” she breathed, leaning forward and kissing his lips gently. “I understand. An ocean may have separated us once, but not anymore.”

Juliana pulled away and he held onto her for a long moment before he let her go. For a moment, she seemed undecided what to do, but then she entered the kitchen. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido followed her there, and saw her leaning against a counter. “My father—” she began, her blue eyes flitting up to meet his, “my biological father, died during the war. I don’t think I ever told you that. The Japanese killed him. Pacific theater.”

Uncertain if he was meant to respond, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido, however, chose to remain silent.

“I know you fought, Takeshi-san. I don’t blame you, anymore than I would blame you if you held the gun to my father’s head and pulled the trigger yourself.—I think there is a great deal wrong with the Pacific States. I imagine there was a great deal wrong with America before the war. I just want there to be harmony. And I think we are harmony, Takeshi-san. You and me. We may have a stolen moment in time, but for our stolen moment in time, we are harmony. I won’t let anything pull us apart. I want to be yours in every way that you’ll let me. I won’t let the people who call me a race traitor stop that. I won’t let Trudy stop that. I think she’s jealous that I smile all the time—and you’re the one who makes me smile.” She looked at him desperately and for a long moment he just stood there.

He regarded her for a moment, the flush of her cheeks, the pulse at her neck, and then he moved forward in three quick strides, captured her jaw in his hand, and kissed her passionately. She opened her mouth in a moan and he drank it in. There was something so hauntingly delicate about Juliana despite her innate strength that drew him in, and he wanted to possess her very soul. 

Careful not to rip her dress as she only had one other after the explosion, he lifted up the hem and quickly freed himself. It was rough and it was animalistic and up against the counter and unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido wanted Juliana desperately in that moment, craved that harmony she spoke about, that distant dream that he feared would never come to pass. 

She smoothed the hair away from his forehead when he spilled into her and they panted out the same air. In that moment, he didn’t know he had created their second child, a child that would have to be lost to them. When Juliana told him two months later, she whispered, “I named her Aiko. Love—child—I thought it was appropriate.” The blood of their love was soon spilt in the clinical room of a doctor’s office, Juliana crying for a loss that could never be replaced.

At the time he thought he could never offer her anything better.

As he now thought of the first, the second, and now the third— Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido wondered if that could possibly change. 

…

Juliana had not removed her engagement ring from Takeshi all week while studying in the Greater Reich Library in New York City. She had received a few comments on it, even from Thomas, and she said her boss from the Pacific States had given it to her for years of loyal service. She thought it was the sort of gesture Trade Minister Tagomi might make.

On Saturday she dressed in red and pinned the Swastika on her coat and placed it in her hair before she allowed John to escort her to the family car. Thomas would be spending the day at a friend’s. They had not spoken of the engagement at all, of love, but Juliana was just going to pick out a ring to keep the peace and would delay the wedding as much as possible so that her own marriage to Takeshi could take place and render the other impossible. She would wear the ring around the house and whenever John was about—and then take it off—especially at the Imperial Embassy.

Her first order of business would be to request a meeting with the junior ambassador and inform him of the problem. 

Then again, she half thought John had deluded himself that she had given up any idea of going back to the embassy. He would be sorely disappointed. One thing she had always appreciated about Takeshi is that he respected her independence and her ability to make decisions. Yes, he got her a job, but she was not forced to take it or remain in it. He provided for her, but she could make her home as she wanted it. He did not stop her from seeing her family even when he so clearly disapproved of Trudy. While Takeshi purchased her Japanese lipstick and dresses, he did not insist that she wear them. She was always given a choice.

John, it seemed, did not.

When Juliana first entered the large jewelry store, her coat was taken from her and she looked around. John was in his military uniform and he led her up to an assistant who was obviously waiting for them. 

“Darling,” John stated, startling her. 

She had never been called that before.

Looking at him, she let him indicate a case, which showcased several rings that held diamonds in them. They were larger and more—well, more—than the ring her mother wore. Juliana’s eyes went wide and she glanced at John. “This is too much,” she stated. “I—can’t possibly.”

“Don’t be modest, Alexa. You wear that horrible ring that was given to you for exemplary service in your government post, though why you chose to find it just this week baffles me. These are far less ostentatious.”

She swallowed and turned back to the case.

It was then that a familiar man across the way with a woman a good twenty years older than her caught her eye. He smiled and then immediately led the woman over. Shaking John’s hand, he greeted them. “Obergruppenfuhrer. I thought I recognized this young woman. You worked for the Imperial Trade Minister, did you not? I remember you personally went and got me coffee at a morning meeting when I know those Japs don’t drink the stuff.” He offered her his hand.

“It’s good to see you again, sir,” she greeted, only partially remembering him. “I hope the coffee wasn’t too terrible.”

His eyes went wide comically. “Dreadful, but I don’t hold that against you. There’s nothing like good German coffee, eh, Smith?”

“Quite,” he agreed. “Alexa has defected to the Reich so I doubt you’ll be seeing her again with the Trade Minister.”

The unnamed man looked at her for a long moment. “That must be a story. Dorothy? Perhaps you can help Alexa with her purchase while I speak with the Obergruppenfuhrer for a moment.”

He looked at Juliana again for a long moment and then turned to John, leading him away for a moment.

…

John hadn’t paid attention to Alexa’s choice once he had finished speaking with Michaels. It seemed pretty. Small, but pretty. She appeared hesitant to put it on, but he had slipped it on her finger.

“So,” he said when they were a few miles out of the city. “Are we going to talk about it?”

She took a deep sigh. “Trade Minister Tagomi? He really was the kindest man.”

“No,” he wheedled, “the fact the stone in your ring from Trade Minister Tagomi symbolizes harmony and sometimes is used to promote marriage.”

Alexa stilled beside him, but only for the briefest of moments. “Does it?” Her voice was just a tad higher than usual.

“You went to the Imperial Embassy on Wednesday,” he laid out for her, “and you came back with that peculiar ring. You wear a bracelet, which has some significance in Japanese culture. Alexa, I don’t think you understand. You are a citizen of the American Reich. You are going to marry an Obergruppenfuhrer within the next few months. I have a position to maintain.”

Her blue eyes turned to him. “I can see that, among other things, I am culturally a disappointment to you. Perhaps this marriage is ill advised.”

John had to fight not to grind his teeth. He wanted this woman desperately. Every morning in the shower, he imagined her sinking on her knees in front of him. The Japanese were kinky little bastards. She probably was used to someone coming all over her face and hair. Helen certainly wouldn’t have let him.

“Alexa—”

“Stop trying to change me,” she demanded. “All you do is try to change me. You’re a very controlling man, John. It was little things at first so that I didn’t even notice, but now it’s everything.”

“I’m trying to protect you, Alexa. I am trying to build a home. I am trying to give you a family.”

“You killed my family!” she suddenly screamed. “I know that wasn’t a vitamin pill. You killed my baby.” Alexa took in several deep breaths and he gripped the steering wheel, trying to cool his anger.

“The child was racially defective, Alexa,” he attempted to explain. “I will give you children—Aryan children who you can be proud of. It will be enough, Alexa. You will be content. Happy, even. I know you don’t believe me now, but I promise you this.”

For a long while she was silent. Finally, she whispered, “Just take me home, John.”

He noticed that while the ring was on her finger at dinner, that night when she passed him coming out of the bathroom, it was conspicuously absent.

…

Childan was a man of taste and refinement. He always wore a European-style suit, a tie that was muted and respectful, and a pressed shirt. He spoke Japanese fluently and was nothing less than deferent to his Japanese clientele. 

When Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido first walked in, Childan was surprised. He knew the man by reputation, of course. He did not know that he was a collector of Historic Americana Paraphernalia. A man of such distinction, however, was more than welcome. His spectacles were round and gave his face a severity along with the harsh set of his jaw. He did not remove his hat as he moved around the display cases, occasionally pausing at a particular display. 

Childan had a small book and he knew the exact placement of his merchandise. In shorthand, he made careful note of what the Chief Inspector took note of. It might be useful in future. A shrewd businessman knew his esteemed clients, their moods, their desires. The man who ran the kempeitai was accustomed to never giving any hint away. He would be particularly difficult.

Finally, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido approached Childan. “This place has been recommended to me,” he stated carefully. “A woman of great taste spoke well of your,” (he paused significantly making Childan nervous) “operation.”

“I am much gratified, Chief Inspector,” he replied, bowing at the waist, his hands at his side. “Is there anything specifically you are searching for today or do you care to browse?”

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked around him for a long moment. “I do not have the luxury of time,” he admitted. “I require two wedding bands, one for a woman, one for a man. I think the woman I speak of would be much gratified by the gesture if the items were from America’s historic past.”

Childan was so surprised that at first he did not speak. When he found his voice, he quickly bowed again. “I do not usually show such items of specific worth. If you would give me but a moment. I have two sets in the back.”

The Chief Inspector made a sign and he carefully turned and blew out a long breath, trying not to hurry. This was a potentially significant sale. Wedding bands were hard to come by because people were buried with them on their fingers and they were no longer made in the Pacific States since the Axis Powers won the war.

He went to his private safe, turning the dial with the combination and then sorted through the items until he found the two jewelry boxes he was looking for. When he returned to his store, he found Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido still waiting. He had half inspected his customer to have left.

“The traditional gold is more common,” Childan told him, “more preferred.” He took the first box and opened it. “The wedding ring is worn on the left hand, on the fourth finger. I do not know who the intended recipients are or if they are for your private collection, but you are, of course, welcome to try either on or inspect them. I have certificates of authenticity for your perusal if you are satisfied with the merchandise.” The bands were gold, thin, basic. 

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido bent down and inspected them before reaching forward and taking the larger of the two bands. “This is for the man?” he questioned.

“Indeed, Chief Inspector. As I said, it is traditionally worn on the fourth finger of the left hand. In America before the war it was called the ‘ring finger’.”

“Why?” he asked, looking up.

“I believe,” he answered knowledgably, “it is because of the Romans. The Roman Empire spanned most of Europe as you may know. The Romans believed that a vein in the ring fingers connected directly to the heart. They were incorrect, of course, but in Europe and, by extension, American culture, the superstition continued.”

Kido stared at the ring which was pinched between his thumb and index finger and then, surprisingly, he slid it onto his left ring finger. Looking down at it for a moment, he admitted, “It is not comfortable.”

Quickly, Childan offered, “Perhaps you would prefer the second set, Chief Inspector, if the first does not meet your approval. While more expensive, it is made of platinum, and the bands are wider. This makes them more conspicuous to the eye, announcing to others the definite status that the wearer is married. The metal is more exclusive, rarer, as I am certain you are aware.” He opened the second box and showed the two rings.

The Chief Inspector had removed the gold band and placed it down on the counter and was now inspecting the wider platinum bands. They were unusual. In fact, they had belonged to a wealthy mob family in Chicago, which the authentication showed. When the Chief Inspector picked up the larger band, Childan carefully scooped up the gold band and placed it back in its slot in the jewelry box. He would polish it later. 

Looking at it in the light, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido then slipped it onto the appropriate finger, swiveled it a few times, then slid it up to his knuckle. 

“Men,” Childan carefully suggested, “sometimes shake their hands down to see if the ring slides past their knuckle, Chief Inspector.”

For a long moment, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido regarded him before doing as he suggested. The band remained where it was. Then, without removing the wedding band, he picked up the women’s band which, while still wider than the average band, was thinner than the one he was wearing. “What is the probability,” he asked in his precise accent, “that this would fit the finger of a woman of the white man?”

“Well,” Childan stated, clearly flustered. “I cannot answer for certain as the woman is not here, but it was made for the woman of the white man. For your esteemed personage, I can, of course, make an exception and give you thirty days to return the rings if they do not meet your exact specifications. I understand how—personal—a purchase this must be.”

Cold, Japanese eyes met his. “Yes, this is a personal purchase. The woman who recommended this establishment was Miss Juliana Crain. She bought several vases from you, I believe, along with a tea set after her apartment was bombed.”

Surprise filled Childan. He remembered Juliana Crain. She was an elegant young woman who wore Japanese fashion and had an eye for Americana antiques. There were rumors that she was a race traitor, but Childan had no idea that she was involved with the Chief Inspector of the kempeitai or that he had planned to marry her. 

Wetting his lips, Childan took a deep breath. “Miss Crain is a woman of refinement. I am certain you agree with me. I did not have occasion to study her hands at length, but I believe that the band would fit her hand or the approximate size of hers. Again, Chief Inspector, I would, of course, reimburse you up to thirty days—”

“Quite,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido interrupted him. “I will purchase these items and I expect your silence.”

“Of course, Chief Inspector,” Childan agreed as he accepted the larger bands back and took a clean rag to polish them. “My discretion is always part of the service. I only record the names and addresses of my customers, not their purchases. Only the kempeitai have ever requested such records.” He then brought out the certificate of authenticity, which Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido perused and, once he was satisfied, thirty-five thousand yen passed hands. Fifteen thousand for the woman’s band. Twenty for the man’s.

When his customer left, Childan sighed in relief and wonder. He had never heard of a Pawn marrying the woman of a white man. It was—there wasn’t a word to describe it. He wondered if he would see Juliana Crain again. Perhaps she would want to furnish her new home with touches of Americana. It was entirely possible. He closed up his shop for the day and went back into his personal rooms for a much needed drink, thinking of the possible future.

…

The weekend was one of politeness and silence. Juliana was certain to smile and to play the perfect ward. She did not seek out John’s company. When John kissed her hand, she let it slip from his fingers as soon as possible without seeming rude. 

When they were sitting down for dinner, Thomas looked between them and asked, “When’s the wedding?”

“Soon,” John answered immediately.

“Six months,” Juliana responded at the same time.

John and Juliana looked at each other.

He blotted his mouth and put down his napkin. “Six months, Alexa? Is this a tradition I am unaware of?”

She carefully took a sip of her wine. “Engagements always last six to twelve months,” she lied. In truth they lasted only a matter of weeks. The bride only needed a pretty dress, then the couple went to city hall and got a license, and when it was granted they were married among friends. “Anyway, I’d prefer to wait a year since entering the American Reich. I still feel slightly uncomfortable, as if I’m going to say the wrong thing, make the wrong step. I’d like to feel more at home.”

“You are at home,” John stated dangerously. “We will marry soon, Thomas.”

“Six months,” she argued. “I’ve only been here four months, John. You didn’t even ask me. You told me over breakfast.”

“By all accounts you seemed thrilled in that diner with Joe. You were drinking milkshakes and laughing and making toasts, though those apparently didn’t make much sense,” he added to himself.

Of course, they didn’t make sense. She was cheering to cats given her name and he was suggesting they toast to the ocean to be silly.

A dread settled into her stomach. Takeshi better find her soon, otherwise she would be refusing to say her vows in front of witnesses—and she doubted John would be conciliatory if she humiliated him like that.

Then again, what would he do if she came back from the Imperial Embassy married?

**2018/10/03**


	9. Part the Ninth

**Part the Ninth—  
** _“Just like nicotine, heroin, morphine / You’re all I need”  
_ **—“Never Be the Same,” Camila  
**

It was rather silly really. Juliana got up for the morning, dressed like the perfect Nazi fiancée, put on her engagement ring from Obergruppenfuhrer Smith, and went down to breakfast. After he left for Nazi Headquarters and she sent Thomas off to school, she went back upstairs and changed into a Japanese dress, applied her Japanese lipstick, put up her hair in a Japanese style, slipped off her Western ring while leaving the ring from Takeshi on her finger, and slid out the door while wearing her coat. She barely made it on time to the Imperial Embassy, but the assistant who had first introduced her to the building, nodded to her.

She bowed to him. “Sensei,” she greeted. “I need to see the junior ambassador. I know that he is a man of great importance, but it concerns our mutual friend.”

The assistant looked at her hand for a moment as she rose. “Your mutual friend is due to arrive within the next three hours, Misaki-san. I trust that you might speak to him then.”

Visibly shocked, she nonetheless bowed and was sent to a room where she was reviewing old recordings of Resistance members who had been captured by the Embassy before the Nazis could get them. Most of them were the white man, so she could understand the cadence of their thoughts although their motives were often oblique. She took meticulous notes and waited in anticipation for Takeshi to arrive.

When a knock finally sounded on the door, she shut off the film and opened it to find a young Japanese woman.

“Misaki-san,” she greeted with a bow. “The junior ambassador requests your presence.”

“Of course,” she responded. “One moment.”

She moved back into the room and returned the film to its canister and took up her notes before leaving. Juliana and the young woman did not speak as they took the elevator up to the top floor. She was left with the personal assistant to the junior ambassador and was shown in almost immediately. 

Juliana took in the large office and her eyes almost immediately fell on Takeshi. Trying to hold in a smile, she looked over to see the junior ambassador behind his desk. Bowing low, she greeted, “Excellency, Chief Inspector, it is a great honor.”

“Misaki-san,” the junior ambassador greeted. “I was informed you wished to speak to me about our mutual friend.”

Her eyes flitted to Takeshi and a smile took over her face despite herself before it faltered again. “My guardian,” she admitted, “Obergruppenfuhrer Smith, has forced me to become engaged to him. I have an engagement ring at home. He is insisting on marrying as soon as possible. He will not listen to my protests or my pleas for delay, excellency, Chief Inspector.—He—” She swallowed “Takeshi-san,” she whispered, “he said it was a vitamin. They give me vitamins every morning and I thought the new pill was just another one. He said he would give me—others—that he will make me happy, but I know this to be a lie.”

Takeshi glanced at the junior ambassador before standing and going to her. He did not touch her, he would never do that, not in company, but his presence gave her a sense of calm. 

“You will not take any more vitamins,” he made her promise. “Misa-chan, none.” Turning to the junior ambassador, he stated, “I do not wish to delay. I will marry Miss Crain today.”

Then he did what she thought was impossible. He reached forward and his thumb brushed against hers for the briefest of moments before it withdrew again. Juliana couldn’t even speak she was so shocked.

The junior ambassador stood. “What crime has been committed?” he asked carefully in his heavy Japanese accent.

“He killed my child,” Takeshi stated quietly. “It would have been born with honor, junior ambassador. I do not know if this—vitamin pill,” he spat, “has injured Misaki-san’s womb.”

“Our doctors will determine,” the junior ambassador promised. “Do you wish to proceed before or after an examination, Chief Inspector?” His black eyes belied his seriousness and, if Juliana didn’t quite understand the nuances of Japanese culture, she would have been insulted. 

“Now, excellency,” he answered with a small bow. 

There was a small temple in the embassy. Juliana had never seen a Japanese wedding ceremony. She was guided through the movements and found it strange that she never touched Takeshi until, once the ceremony was completed, he took out a jewelry box containing two wedding bands and presented it to her with a bow. 

Smiling, she took the larger one and, clearly to his surprise, slipped it onto his left ring finger. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he repeated the action on her. The ring was a little loose, but she knew she wouldn’t lose it. It was precious to her because he had given it to her, he had wanted to follow this one small bit of her culture. 

There were private rooms with bedrolls in the Embassy for visiting dignitaries. Takeshi was leaving on an evening flight, but they had a few hours with each other. 

In silence he took down her hair and kissed down her shoulder blades when she removed her dress. He unhooked her bra and held her breasts in the palms of his hands as she reached back and kissed his lips. For once, it didn’t matter that they were lost in their passion, a movement of limbs and hushed Japanese oaths. A child that might come of this union would be born with honor and carry his father’s name with dignity and the history of hundreds of years. 

“A year and a half,” she whispered just as she was falling asleep, trying to rouse herself, “a year and a half before we can go to Japan.”

“You will love Nagasaki,” he promised her, tracing the lines of her face. “We will live two hours outside of it in a fishing village. It is a simple life, but you will appreciate it.”

“You won’t miss the city?” she asked.

“No,” he told her as he drew her closer. “Will you?”

Burrowing her face into his shoulder, she admitted, “I don’t know. I’ve only known San Francisco and New York. Well, there’s Long Island. I don’t suppose that’s a city.—How is San Francisco? Have there been more attacks?”

Takeshi hesitated. “Since the death of your sister, they have become less targeted,” he admitted. “We have since learned that she was the leader of the cell in San Francisco.” He paused while she shifted uncomfortably in his arms. “Still, two nieces have been targeted. One died immediately when she was shot in the street. She was the woman of a white man. A Japanese niece survived the attack against her.”

Juliana sighed. “Why do they hate us? We are the wives of war. We don’t actively hurt anyone.”

“No,” he agreed, running a hand through her hair. “No, none of you hurt anyone.” Takeshi leaned down and, when she looked up, he kissed her gently.

Being unable to part from him, Juliana escorted Takeshi back to the airport. They were standing close to each other, chatting in Japanese. When they were about to part, Juliana realized, “What’s my name?”

“Misaki-san?”

“Am I Alexa Smith? Alexa Kido? Misaki Kido? Ju—” She paused when he inclined his head slightly, showing that he should be silent. 

“I would like it,” he told her simply before leaning close to her, “if you were Juliana Kido.” His voice was a breath against her ear, stirring her hair, and when he pulled away she was smiling, their eyes meeting. “It is how I have privately thought of you since I placed that bracelet around your wrist,” he murmured in Japanese, “although I never would have vocalized such a thought.”

“Scita,” she said in farewell as his flight was called.

“Scita,” he agreed before he bowed to her formally before turning and leaving her.

Juliana stood in a crowd of Aryan men and women, her gaze set in the distance as he moved away from her, knowing her heart was leaving with him.

…

John had dreamed of Alexa again. He dreamt that she had come into his room and roused him with her lips around his hardening cock. John had gasped as he still slept, imagining Juliana’s beautiful Aryan eyes looking up at him deliciously as her lips were stretched around him before she stood and pulled her thin cotton nightdress over her head and lay down, completely naked, beside him, her beautiful back exposed to him.

Somewhere in his sleeping mind he knew she must have scars from that mysterious bus accident, but her skin was smooth in his dream when he ran his hand over the skin.

“Fuck me,” she begged, and when he moved to prop up her hips to gain entrance to her secret lips, she shook her head. “No, John. Not like that. Fuck me like a whore you don’t want to get pregnant.”

And so he slid into her ass, and it was so warm and so tight, and she screamed and screamed and begged and begged, and John came with a shout, sitting up in his bed and realizing he was sticky with his own mess.

When he finally caught hold of his own breath, he wondered if the little Japanese monkey had fucked her like that, and realized he didn’t care. The Jap probably did. They were sick bastards. Alexa would gladly give John anything he desired because she would wish to please him and all his dark fantasies. While she was a beautiful Aryan woman, she did not have the horrible Aryan frigidness that so many women possessed in the Greater Nazi Reich. They were too obsessed with getting pregnant that they wouldn’t try anything that mildly deviated from their ultimate goal.

When she didn’t come home immediately for dinner, he wondered if it was the day she played bridge with the other ladies and it perhaps ran late. John berated himself for not asking Rose where Alexa had gone once he had left for work.

Then Thomas had finished his homework and John sat down to watch tv with him. They often did this in the evenings. Thomas would lie on his stomach and watch the latest episode of something and John would pour over files with a whiskey.

The telephone rang and John looked up.

Thomas glanced over when John got up to answer it. After the third ring, he picked it up. “Smith residence.”

“Obergruppenfuhrer Smith,” the familiar voice of Erich echoed across the line. “You left orders that if Miss Alexa Smith demonstrated any peculiar behavior that you should be informed immediately.”

His stomach sank and he glanced into the living room. “Is she at the Imperial Embassy?”

“Not to our knowledge,” Erich told him. “She is currently at the airport, the international terminal, with Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido of the Japanese Empire. Our sources confirm that while he has a ticket to San Francisco, she does not.”

John had no idea Kido was in the American Reich, let alone in New York. Taking a deep breath, he instructed, “Would you be so good as to escort my fiancée back to my residence? Being a former citizen of the Pacific States, she has many acquaintances in the government and I find they often take advantage of her generous nature. I’m sure the Chief Inspector can discuss the torture of Semites they both knew with some other Aryan woman.” He hung up the phone angrily. John took a calming breath and then ran a hand down his face before entering the living room again.

“Who was that, Dad?” Thomas asked innocently.

“Oh,” John replied casually. “Just Erich from work. Tying up loose ends. Alexa should be home soon.”

Of course, John was sure that Thomas was upstairs and in his room by the time the official car pulled up and Alexa was escorted to the door. Her hair was down in waves, her face free of all cosmetics, which was unusual, and she was wearing one of her Japanese dresses under her coat. He thanked the Corporal for seeing his fiancée home, and then shut the door behind her.

“What,” he demanded, “were you thinking, seeing that man?”

Alexa blinked at him. “I’m sorry?”

“After everything that has happened—after he took advantage of you to the point where we had to abort the creature he thrust upon you—Do you realize the seriousness of this? You had to be smuggled out of the Pacific States because, as his mistress, you were a race traitor and you were being specifically targeted!”

“I had to be smuggled here,” she refuted, “because my sister Trudy gave me some film before she was shot dead by the kempeitai and the Resistance thought that I was the one who shot her for the film before turning it over to Takeshi when, in fact, I tried to smuggle it into the Neutral Zone!” Alexa breathed in heavily and pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead. “Don’t tell Takeshi that.”

John pressed his hands together. “While I think you should have handed in that film into the authorities immediately, I don’t care about your lover’s spats with Takeshi Kido. All he does is put your life in danger, don’t you see that? You’re throwing your life away. You’ve been given a second chance. You don’t seem to realize that.”

She didn’t even blink. “Aren’t I polluted to you or something? I’m a kept woman! A race traitor! You know that every time he comes back into this country, he will find me or I will find him. You can send me into space in one of your rockets and I will still find Takeshi Kido, John Smith.—Don’t even say that you love me, because we both know that’s not true. I know what love looks like and whatever this is, it’s not love.”

“How can you possibly know what love looks like?” John argued, latching on to the last thing she said. 

“Love,” she answered after a long moment, “is when a Japanese man touches your hand in front of another person who is not family.”

The answer shocked John. He had never considered that anyone of Japanese origin would consider touching another person in public. Such an idea was preposterous.

“You are still his mistress,” John stated calmly and rationally. “As soon as his assignment is over, he will leave North America and you will never see him again.”

She folded her arms and then nodded once. “If that’s what helps you sleep at night, John.” Then she went up the stairs. John just stood staring at the door. “Thomas, you should be in bed,” he heard her say, and he turned to see his son sitting on the stairs.

“Thomas!” he barked. “Listen to your mother.”

Looking a little frightened, Thomas got up and scurried ahead of Alexa. She looked down at him, raising an eyebrow, but continued up the stairs.

…

Thomas was having trouble focusing. He knew he should be happy that his father and Alexa were marrying, there had even been an announcement in the New York Times (which had made Alexa silent that morning at breakfast), but they no longer seemed to be a family.

One day when he was snooping in Alexa’s room, he found several pages with Japanese written on them. When he compared them, it seemed they all began the same way. He wondered if it was a list of some kind of list or a letter.

His teacher, Mr. Mills, noticed his distraction, and asked him to wait after class.

“You seem disturbed, Thomas,” Mr. Mills began. He was a man with dark brown eyes but golden hair that Thomas secretly envied. He was in his sixties so his hair was graying a bit, but he was certainly of Aryan descent. “Can you not speak to your father?”

“It’s about Alexa,” Thomas admitted, “and father.”

“Who’s Alexa?” Mr. Mills pressed.

“My father’s fiancée,” Thomas told him firmly. “She’s great. She defected from the Pacific States and I helped her study for her ACT. She passed with nearly perfect marks. Then—then some Japanese man started sending her gifts.” He looked down at his hands.

“Gifts,” Mr. Mills repeated. “I take it she is Aryan?”

“Yes,” Thomas assured. “She has eyes that are so blue they almost hurt. Still, there is this Japanese man. Then he came here. I don’t know what happened, but it made Alexa upset. She was crying and—” He didn’t want to mention the pregnancy. “I think he hurt her somehow. The gifts just keep on coming even though Dad refuses them. Somehow they got one to her, a ring, from a former employer of hers in the Pacific States. Then the man came again and my father had to send the police to escort him to his plane or something.” He shrugged. “I’m not sure what happened. I’m just worried. She’s so concerned about the wedding and I think it’s because of the Japanese. I think they’re scaring her and she’s too afraid to tell my father. Whenever I overhear them it sounds so cryptic. One time Alexa was talking about love and touching hands. I have no idea what she meant.”

Mr. Mills was solemn for a long moment. “If your future stepmother defected, it is possible that she is afraid of the Japanese, Thomas. You should speak to your father about it. I am certain that he is doing everything he can to protect Miss Alexa, but she may need your help, as well. As a citizen of the Greater Nazi Reich, you must protect all of its citizens, including Miss Alexa. Perhaps you are able to see something that your father can’t.”

Thomas nodded once. “You know, she even had to change her name. It wasn’t Alexa. Alexa was the name of her cat in the Pacific States. She had to come up with a name quickly, so she chose it because it was the first name that came into her head.”

Smiling, Mr. Mills looked at Thomas fondly. “Well, she must have been fond of her cat. I imagine she was better company than the Japanese.”

Thomas laughed at the idea. “I think she will make a beautiful bride. Of course, she hasn’t gone shopping for a wedding dress yet. I overheard her tell someone over the telephone that in the Pacific States a bride simply wore her best dress and it seemed strange to buy one specifically for the occasion, but I’m hoping Dad will be able to change her mind.”

Now Mr. Mills laughed.

Thomas stood and then hesitated. “Can you tell me what something means, Mr. Mills? It’s just, Alexa has it on her bracelet, and I don’t know what it means. I don’t want to seem ignorant—”

“Of course, Thomas,” he agreed. “What is it?”

“Can I draw it?” Thomas asked, going to the board. He drew a circle and then several rays coming out of it at strange angles. “Now, the circle and the lines are a deep red and the rest is white. At first I thought it was the Japanese flag, but it’s obviously different—On the back of the bracelet something is written, but I haven’t gotten a close look at it yet.”

“That’s the symbol of the Imperial Navy,” Mr. Mills whispered in shock. “Are you quite certain, Thomas? Only the Japanese can serve in the Imperial Navy. Alexa, as an Aryan, would not have a family member in that order. It’s inconceivable that she would wear it.”

Thomas’s stomach sank. Perhaps that’s what his dad and Alexa meant when they called her a ‘race traitor.’ Perhaps it had something to do with her association with the Imperial Navy.

“Maybe it has to do with where she worked?” he wondered aloud. “From what I can tell, she was in a position of importance although she was Aryan and that’s unusual there.”

“Is your father aware of his bracelet?” Mr. Mills asked, clearly trying to sound casual.

“She always wears it,” Thomas responded, “since the day she first appeared and was placed under our protection. Alexa always wears that and the strange lipstick. I’ve never seen an Aryan woman wear lipstick that dark.” He turned to Mr. Mills. “You’re going to call someone about this sun.”

Mr. Mills looked at him. “I believe I have to, Thomas.”

“Call Dad,” he begged. “It’s difficult to see. I only noticed because she fell asleep in a lawn chair and she was holding a book across her stomach and, when I went to take the book, I was finally able to get a good look at it.”

After a long moment, Mr. Mills nodded. “I’ll call Obergruppenfuhrer Smith. You have my word, Thomas. The Japanese man you mentioned might be threatening your future stepmother. That could be why she wears it. We must remain vigilant at all times.”

…

Juliana thought she had arrived home before Thomas, certainly before John. When she walked into the house, she was startled when John came out of his office and took in her coat and her pink Japanese dress. Then his eyes drifted down her arms.

“Not only are you not wearing your engagement ring,” he stated, “you seem to be wearing a bracelet that claims that you’re the property of the Imperial Navy.”

Stilling, Juliana looked at him in shock. “When did you notice?” she asked, not denying it.

He laughed. “Thomas did and mentioned it to a teacher. You’re lucky the police didn’t pick you up for being a traitor to the Greater Nazi Reich.”

He turned to go into his study and, after a moment, she took off her coat and followed him in. John was leaning up against his desk, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Alexa,” he stated after a long moment, “why do you still believe yourself to be the personal property of the Imperial Navy? You are no longer the mistress of the Chief Inspector of the Japanese Pacific States division of the kempeitai.”

“No,” she agreed after a long pause. “I am not his mistress—or his ‘niece’ as we were called.”

He spread his hands to show that he had made his point.

“I’m his wife.”

John stilled. “You’re his wife?” he asked dangerously.

“Yes,” she agreed, not backing down. “We were married two weeks ago, the night you had me picked up at the airport. He flew in for the ceremony. His first wife died, you see, making our marriage possible.”

The room became so silent, Juliana couldn’t even hear them breathe. Then, in a sudden fit of rage, John screamed and flung his hand across his desk, throwing half of the contents onto the floor, glass smashing and ink splattering. “You whore!”

Juliana just stood there, not reacting. When he said nothing else, though he continued to breathe heavily, she stated calmly, “You knew I never wanted to marry you. That I love him. That day in the diner I was talking about my engagement to Takeshi.”

“Joe knew?” he questioned dangerously.

“No,” she lied. “I never told him who I was talking about. He may have assumed it was you. He may have assumed it was some other citizen here in New York.” She shrugged. “We were just celebrating.”

Looking around, John laughed. “Well, your citizenship has reverted. As Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido is a citizen of the Japanese Empire at large, so are you as his wife. I trust the Imperial Embassy has issued you the proper papers? What’s your name now? Alexa Kido?”

“Not quite,” she told him. “Takeshi wanted me to use the name I was born with.”

John laughed hysterically. “And what’s that? We know Alexa is your cat? Who are you now, Mrs. Kido?”

Her blue eyes flashed up. “We both know I am ‘Madam Kido,’ John. Don’t be culturally insensitive. Now, would you like me to pack my things and go to the Embassy or do I still have a room under your roof?”

Deflating, he admitted, “I have no idea. I’ll decide in the morning, Madam Kido. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.” And then she left.

…

That night she had a dream. Normally, she would imagine Takeshi’s fingers against the side of his face, a kiss placed on her shoulder.

However, that night was different. Here there were strong limbs holding her down and a voice she knew and could not identify.

When Juliana woke up, it was as if nothing had happened.

**2018/10/03**


	10. Part the Tenth

**Part the Tenth—** __  
“I guess I overcomplicate / People tell me to medicate”  
**—“Breathin,” Ariana Grande  
**

There was an odd silence between Alexa and his dad at the breakfast table. For some reason, Alexa hadn’t come down for dinner (Dad said she was unwell), and now they all ate in silence.

“Mother,” Thomas began and his dad looked at him sharply for some reason, “I was thinking. It might be educational if you came and spoke to my class about life in the Pacific States.”

She seemed genuinely shocked. “I think your father was a little over anxious for you to call me ‘mother’,” she replied, not answering his question, “and I don’t think I’m the best authority.”

Thomas, however, wouldn’t be gainsaid. “You worked for the Imperial government—did you ever meet a member of the Imperial family?”

Dad looked up, clearly interested.

Alexa took a deep breath and centered herself. “I met the Crown Princess after the assassination attempt on the Crown Prince. She is a close friend of the Trade Minister and I was able to offer assistance while she and her retinue were waiting for news on the health of his imperial highness. She is a gracious woman.”

Taking a sip from his glass of orange juice, Dad added, “Alexa also has a position at the Embassy, which I’m certain is one of great importance. What is it you do, exactly, Alexa?”

Her blue eyes flashed as she looked at him. “I’m afraid I can’t speak about it, John. You can rest assured that it isn’t remotely subversive to the Greater Nazi Reich.”

He laughed to himself, looking out the window. “Why do I doubt that?”

“I don’t know, John. Why do you doubt that?”

It was clear, to Thomas, that they had clearly forgotten about him.

She took a deliberate sip of her coffee. At least it wasn’t black this morning. Alexa usually liked it with a generous amount of cream and sugar, though he had heard her once ask Rose about tea. 

Their eyes held for a long moment before Dad turned to Thomas as if suddenly remembering he was present. “It doesn’t matter anyway, Thomas. Alexa is moving out this morning. Her suitcases are in the hall.”

“I’ll be sure to return the actual suitcases to you, John. I’m sure you don’t want a race traitor like me stealing from you.” Her tone was pure acid and he merely looked at her as if he were indulging a small child.

Dad shrugged. “Keep the cases. I’m sure you’ll need them if you ever make it to Japan, Madam Kido.”

This certainly shocked Thomas and he looked at Alexa in confusion. Her eyes cut to him and she smiled at him reassuringly. “There’s nothing to worry about, Thomas. It’s only your father and I have ended our engagement and will be seeing less of each other.”

“I imagine I will be seeing something of your husband before you leave us for Asia,” John replied, ignoring Thomas again.

“Given his line of work, I imagine you will,” she stated. “He is, after all, Chief Inspector of the kempeitai. Takeshi came to you when he needed to entrust my safety to someone. Little did either of us know exactly the repercussions of that decision would be.”

Dad’s mouth tightened, but he merely continued his breakfast. 

There was a knock on the door.

Rose went to open it and came back and whispered in Dad’s ear. He grimaced and then glanced at Alexa. “It seems the Embassy sent a car for you. I didn’t realize you telephoned, Alexa.”

“I had to arrange for accommodations, John. Did you expect me to turn up with suitcases like a vagrant?” Alexa was clearly irritated now. “I had hoped, before all this talk of marriage really began, that we would be able to part as friends—despite—despite the incident. Clearly I was mistaken.”

“Clearly,” he answered. “You will not be speaking at Thomas’s school.”

“If you wish,” she responded as she stood. “Forgive me, I do not want to keep my escort waiting.” Then she swept from the room without so much as a goodbye.

…

It was evening and Juliana was excited. She had specifically called him at work to ask if he was coming over for dinner and said that she had a surprise for him. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had been quite startled, but had promised to be at her apartment at the arranged time.

She was dressed immaculately as always but this time she was wearing Western heels and was even wearing color on her cheeks and her eyes were rimmed with black. Juliana picked at her food, barely touching it, and watched him anxiously.

“Misa-chan,” he murmured, setting down his own bowl of rice. “Is all well?”

Giving him a small smile, she nodded. “I have news—and I want to take you somewhere. It’s different from where you’re used to, but I thought… perhaps…” She shook her head and her beautiful hair with its red tints fell around her face. 

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido nodded his head. “I look forward to any news you wish to tell me, Misaki-chan,” he told her formally. 

Reassured, she picked up her chopsticks and began to eat, catching glances at him every few moments.

He was surprised when she brought him to a part of San Francisco he was only familiar with in a professional capacity. There was a nondescript door next to what appeared to be a used bookshop and she rapped on the door which opened for her. She smiled at the man behind it who then let her through. As soon as Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido emerged from the shadows, a large hand rested on his shoulder, halting him from entering, but Juliana grabbed the offending wrist.

“He just wants to enjoy some Americana music, okay? I’m a friend of Trudy’s. She knows we’re coming.”

“She said you were bringing a Semite,” the man drawled, and Juliana didn’t look remotely surprised.

Smiling, she just looked up at him. “She must have misunderstood. I said ‘big romantic date’. Are you going to let my ‘big romantic date’ through or are you going to insult him so much that he’s going to report you to the kempeitai for playing suspect music?”

Immediately, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was released and he looked over the man once before adjusting his tie. Juliana looked behind her and gave him a large smile before beckoning him forward and, a little hesitantly, he followed.

“I am the kempeitai,” he murmured as they continued down the hallway.

She tilted her head toward him, her hair swishing and releasing the scent of cherry blossoms. “He doesn’t know that. While you have a formidable reputation, Takeshi-san, it was obvious he did not recognize you based on his behavior.”

They continued into the establishment, down a dark hallway which was punctuated every few steps with lights that barely illuminated the way. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido kept close behind Juliana and was surprised when he heard unfamiliar music waft toward them. Juliana turned toward him, smiling, and hurried her step.

A moment later they entered a room which head several small tables and a stage where there appeared to be several of the white man playing antiquated Americana instruments made of metal. A woman in Western trousers and some sort of blouse sauntered up to them and took them in.

“Ah,” she guessed. “Trudy. She was wrong about you—said something about having finally saved your soul.” The woman waggled her fingers and walked off and with a quick look at him, Juliana followed her to a table which had a candle flickering on it. “We don’t have sake,” the woman stated in a disapproving tone.

Juliana glanced at Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. “Do you have tea? I’ll take wine, thank you.”

After the woman had gone, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked at her. “Your sister proves herself to be of interest once again.”

She sighed. “I honestly don’t know what she was thinking. I brought that new blend of tea to Mom when I asked her for a recommendation. I just wanted something—special.” She shrugged. “It’s not all bad.”

A negro came over with their tea and red wine. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked down at the fortunately herbal blend. “No,” he agreed. “It is not completely unsatisfactory.”

A brilliant smile split Juliana’s face, which pleased Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. He secretly took pleasure in her smiles, in her small nuances and displays of emotion which were so muted among the Japanese people here in the Pacific States. He remembered the last time he smiled. It was the day his son was born. 

“I’m pregnant.”

The words were said so suddenly that Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido almost upset his tea. He looked up in shock to see a blushing Juliana. It was clear she was pleased with the news but a deep dread settled in his stomach.

“I will take care of the necessary arrangements,” he told her succinctly, taking a sip of his tea, not looking at her.

She looked at him and smiled again. “I thought we could name her ‘Aiko,’” she continued, completely baffling him. “I have this innate feeling that the child is a girl. I didn’t know—with our last one. I didn’t have a name picked out. Do you like ‘Aiko’?”

Taking a deep breath, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido paused. “Misaki-chan,” he stated carefully. “There is only dishonor in this child.” His dark eyes met hers, plain and harsh, and he begged her to understand with his single gaze.

She was leaning over the table, her beautiful hair falling to the side. Her head was tilted to the side, her eyes an impossible blue, her dark red lips painted into a slight smile at the thought of their unborn child. Then he could see her brow crinkle and her mouth turn down slightly. She drew herself up, looked up toward her wine, and then finished it in a single swallow. He had never seen her behave so and when she coughed, he was genuinely worried. She waved him off, however, and simply set the glass down, signaling the waiter to bring another.

The music played on, a loud cacophony of strange sounds Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido neither recognized nor understood.

“She could take my name,” Juliana whispered. “We could give her an American name—I know I can think of one in a day or two. She never has to know you’re her—” She swallowed. “Father.”

“The child will be mixed-race,” he argued, “and all will know she is the product of this liaison. It is unacceptable. It is not your place to bear my sons.”

“Daughter,” she muttered, but she turned to him and looked at him with a nonchalance he doubted she felt. Her eyes held a hurt that dulled them ever so slightly. “Aiko would never know who you were. You’ll be—gone—before she probably speaks her first word,” Juliana whispered brokenly.

“I would not leave a child of mine in the Japanese Pacific States,” he stated harshly. “Yet I would not take a child of yours away from you, Juliana.” (She looked up when he tore her American name from his throat with an emotion he rarely showed.) “I dishonor my ancestors, the ones who walked before, by creating a child that is not born to my name. You must have a similar situation in the former United States, Misa-chan.”

Juliana did not directly answer the question. Instead, she whispered, “I thought it might be different if the child was Japanese.”

“It would not be different,” he told her. “You know we live by duty, honor—You know you are permitted to hold the position of my ‘niece’ because it is your duty to—”

She closed her eyes in pain. “Yes, I know. You need to be satisfied and comforted so you will be able to be fierce in battle. However, it is not like that. Not for us. You may not say it, Takeshi-san, but it is not like that for us.” Her gaze flashed open, slitted, and he took in the dark lines around the lids that was so strange to him. 

“No,” he agreed. “It is not like that for us. I will ensure, Misa-chan, that you have a good and honorable husband by the time I leave, one of important standing although he is the white man, and he will give you children although I cannot.” The words tore at him, his heart bleeding within his chest, but he breathed in deeply to calm himself. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido hated the idea of any man having Juliana’s smiles, holding her in his arms, kissing her dark red lips. It was torturous to him—but he knew the reality of the situation.

Juliana looked away, her elbow on the table, her fingers tapping against her bottom lip. “And Aiko?”

“I will make the necessary arrangements.”

She looked down. “You’ll be there?” she asked in a small voice.

“I will be present, if it is your wish.”

Juliana took a deep, rattling breath. “It is my wish, Takeshi-san.” She picked up her glass of wine and sipped at it. “And then we will say a prayer for her in the temple. Both gone. Both of our children, gone.”

“We will ensure there is not another,” he promised.

She smiled at him sadly, as if she thought he were lying.

…

“You have a delivery.” The voice was precise and Japanese and Juliana paused. She was about to go to an interrogation. She looked at the Embassy worker who had approached her and noticed that he was bowing. It was strange to receive such deference.

“I am afraid that I am needed on the seventh floor,” she responded. “Is it possible that my delivery could be brought to my room?”

The man straightened. He was so young. This must be his first post, she thought to herself. He held out a folder to her and she looked at the Japanese characters quickly and noticed that it came from the Pacific States. It must be from Takeshi. She quickly printed out her name in Japanese before handing it back. “Thank you,” she responded before she moved on. 

She took the stairs to the seventh floor, liking the exercise, and then went to the appropriate room, using her set of keys to unlock the three doors between the hallway and the interrogation room. When she came to the last door, she looked through the window to take in the detainee and paused.

Juliana knew him.

It was Joe Blake.

Hayato-san was sitting opposite him in his blue business suit, tie clipped perfectly, his shirt a crisp white. He was a capable man with a thick torso, broad shoulders, large hands, in his sixties, or so she supposed.

Juliana knocked on the window three times, and he looked up before coming to the door with the file.

She bowed when he came through. “Hayato-san,” she murmured although they were alone. “I know that man.”

Hayato glanced through the window and then opened the file. “Joe Blake. He is a construction worker who runs suspect trucks to the Neutral Zone. He was found with a suspicious film.”

“He is an agent of Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith,” she explained carefully. “He was his guest at the Smith residence for V-A Day,” she pronounced the letters precisely in English. Taking the folder, she glanced through it. Then she pointed to a short paragraph. “This was me. When he was toasting the ocean then the Atlantic and the Pacific, I was the woman he was with. We were celebrating my engagement to Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido.”

Clearly surprised, Hayato looked down at the paragraph and reread it. “You were so bold to do so in a diner filled with Nazi personnel?”

Shrugging, she looked at him with her blue Aryan eyes. “He chose the location. Do you think that a member of the Resistance would make such assertions in public if they were subversive?” She sighed. “What does the film show?”

He motioned to her and they moved to a separate room where there was a projector. Juliana nearly vomited at what it showed. Turning to Hayato, she asked, “This is one of his films?”

“From what we can tell, Misaki-san. It is clearly impossible unless Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido dies.”

“He’s not going to die,” she answered harshly, turning to her partner. “You must understand, Hayato-san, that I would never—this is disgusting—I—” She was lost for words. “My hair is cut short,” she noted.

Hayato turned to her in obvious question.

“My hair. It’s cut to my shoulders. I just—It seems strange to me. I know you’ve never seen my hair in anything other than a Japanese style, but it’s quite long. It is—admired—for its length and its unusual color.”

“Yes,” Hayato agreed. “Many have remarked that Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido of the kempeitai is most fortunate in his choice of wife after we have observed you and your respect for our culture.”

Juliana was surprised by his praise and bowed her head in thanks. “What will happen with to the film?”

“It will be held here until the next diplomatic shipment, then it will be returned to San Francisco to the Chief Inspector who will view it if he desires to”—they would, of course, be writing a full report on the film, so he would not necessarily have to—“and then it will be destroyed.”

Taking a deep breath, she admitted, “I wish we could destroy it now if it were not a breach of protocol.”

Agent Hayato looked at her for a long moment. “Perhaps I could arrange it, depending on the interview.”

She turned her gaze on him. “I would be most gratified,” she answered, standing.

They returned the film to the cannister and placed it on the shelf in its designated spot. Only the two of them and the Director of Subversive Behavior had access to the room. 

Returning to the interrogation room, they entered. Joe was clearly surprised to see Juliana. She smiled at him. “Hello, Joe. How are you?”

“Alexa—I—How are you here?”

She smiled to herself as she sat next to Hayato. “It’s a long story.”

“I asked Obergruppenfuhrer Smith about you before my last mission, and he told me that you were none of my concern. He—well—there’s been no news of a wedding date—Are you okay? First you were engaged to that Japanese guy and then your engagement to Smith was announced—”

“Agent Kido,” Hayato stated harshly, “is not here for a social visit. We have found you in possession of contraband. You are not an official of the Greater Nazi Reich and therefore have no standing to possess such contraband that is both subversive and a direct threat to the Japanese Empire.”

Juliana took a deep breath. “Joe, have you watched the film?”

He looked at her for a long moment. “Yes. I thought it wasn’t one of his films at first except for the atomic bomb at the beginning—I thought it was just your marriage to Obergruppenfuhrer Smith and that I’d missed it.”

She exchanged a long look with Hayato.

Her partner cleared his throat. “Agent Kido is married to Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido of the Pacific States division of the kempeitai. She brings great honor with her presence here at the Imperial Embassy.”

Joe looked between them in confusion. “Oh,” he stated after a moment. Then, as if realizing what he’d just said, he repeated, “Oh.—I guess I did miss the wedding. Just a different wedding than the one I had thought.”

Being unable to hold in a small smile, Juliana looked at him warmly. “You’re the only one who has seen this film,” she checked.

He opened up his hand and leaned back. “As far as I know.”

Hayato was looking at him appraisingly. She knew that look. Her partner thought Joe was hiding something, and he very well could be. This would only end with Joe in a cell being tortured. 

As she was a woman she was spared the exact details of such proceedings, but she knew they happened. She saw detainees after they were placed in the cells. The dead look in their eyes, the spatters of blood across their wrists and clothes. 

Juliana was not ignorant. She was certain her husband was just as ruthless. She had never asked. Juliana had never wanted to ask. It was not that she was too afraid—it was just that she needed to keep herself separate. She was both the mistress of a powerful Japanese official and the woman of the white man. She could not get involved in disputes between the two differing races.

“Joe,” she stated quietly, “what aren’t you telling us?”

“Alexa—” he warned.

“Agent Hayato will ensure that you talk,” she told him quite firmly. “I prefer you tell me now. You will probably end up in a cell either way, but it will be better this way. Please, Joe. You were my closest friend when I lived with the Smiths. You took me in—when—” She had to hold back a sudden swell of emotion and Hayato looked over at her “You took me in, and I know it was Rita who called John.”

Swallowing, Joe looked at her. “I know what must have happened,” he told her, pointedly looking at her stomach. “It’s unfortunately obvious.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And I don’t blame you.—But, please, tell us what you know. Perhaps there is some way we can help you. We’re not asking you to turn traitor, Joe. We just need to know about the film.”

Hayato was regarding Joe coolly. Usually he took the lead in interviews, Juliana coming in and taking the gentle approach only when it was needed, but he seemed to realize that Juliana had a rapport with Joe and that she would be better suited to extracting information from him. 

It took several minutes of Joe looking between them and fidgeting a bit before he leaned forward, his forearms on the table, and he murmured, “Okay. He’s obsessed with you, Alexa. He heard about a film about you—that the Pacific Resistance was smuggling it into the Neutral Zone and I was sent to take out the agent and retrieve the film. That’s why I watched it. I wanted to see what was so goddamn important that I had to smother a girl, who must have been only sixteen, in her sleep!”

Juliana breathed out and nodded. She turned to Hayato and murmured in Japanese, “Let’s not give him our special brand of hospitality. He’s cooperated.”

He nodded in agreement and Juliana turned to go. It had been a long day and she just wanted to go back to her room and have some rice and rice milk. Today she couldn’t quite face the cafeteria.

When she entered her small set of rooms, which were sparsely furnished but really all she needed, she heard a familiar sound. She paused and quickly closed the door behind her.

Then it was there again. A smile spread across her face and she kicked off her shoes and looked toward the kitchen. As she rushed in there she saw two of her bowls were out, one filled with what seemed like tuna and another with water. Then her eyes fell to the floor where a blanket had been curled up in a corner. Lying in them happily was an orange ball of fur—her cat, Alexa.

“Baby!” she cried, picking up the cat, running her hand down the cat’s back and burying her face in her fur. “How I’ve missed you! Did you have fun bothering Takeshi-san? I bet he couldn’t wait to get rid of you!” She carried the cat over to the fridge and then set her down as she made her dinner, tears in her eyes.

When she made her way to her small table for two, she saw a small envelope with her name written out in English. She recognized the handwriting.

It was Takeshi’s.

In it was written one word.

Scita.

**2018/10/04-2018/10/05  
**


	11. Part the Eleventh

**Part the Eleventh—** _  
“So put your rose colored glasses on / And party on”_ **  
—“Chained to the Rhythm,” Katy Perry**

Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith was dressed meticulously in his Nazi uniform. He made sure, ever since the end of his engagement to Alexa—whoever she really was—that he projected an image of strength, precision, and vitality. Whenever anyone inquired about Alexa, he stated that she had been called to the Fatherland because of her extensive knowledge of the Pacific States. He had instructed Thomas to say the same thing.

When he arrived he was surprised, after Erich had saluted him, when his aide de camp followed him into his office and began to read off his itinerary to him.

“There is one addition,” Erich informed him. “You have two agents from the Imperial Embassy. They wish to speak to you on a matter of National Security.”

“Whose national security?” John asked as he set his files down on his desk and then put his briefcase aside. “Theirs or ours?”

“The aide I spoke to was particularly vague,” Erich apologized. “The Agents hoped to speak to you first thing this morning. They are waiting for you in a private room. I’m afraid that one will—” He paused, looking for words. “Cause comment. She already has, although there were few people here.”

John stilled. “Who is it?”

“I did not catch her name,” Erich apologized, “however she bears a striking resemblance to Miss Smith. In fact, I would state resolutely that they are the same person.”

Swearing under his breath, John looked up. “Escort Madam Kido and her companion in, Erich.”

Erich was clearly surprised by the name. He, undoubtedly, thought that Alexa was in the Fatherland—and John had just confirmed that not only was she most likely the woman waiting in the private room but she now possessed the name of a filthy yellow Jap.

John didn’t have long to wait. 

Alexa was as beautiful as always. He was surprised to see her wide trousers, the black fabric flowing smoothly around her legs, an oriental style shirt wrapped around her torso, coming long past her waist and tied securely by a yellow sash to the side. It was certainly the most peculiar fashion. Her hair was left down, though it was brushed over one shoulder, falling down and catching the light to bring out the red. Her lips were that strange red, as always.

The man was unimportant.

“Agents Hayato and Misaki,” Erich introduced as Alexa and the Japanese man who was wearing a pressed suit bowed. 

John saluted them, his arm outstretched.

Immediately, everyone sat down around the couches and silence filled the room after Erich left. John split his attention between his two guests, noticing how different they were. A Japanese agent aping the Aryan and an Aryan woman imitating the Japanese. It was almost comical.

Finally, it was Alexa who spoke. “How are you, John? I hope Thomas is well?”

“Quite well, Alexa,” he replied, his blue eyes catching hers. “He still asks about you although we’ve been telling everyone you’re in the Fatherland.”

“I understand,” she murmured. “Do call me ‘Misaki.’ I would be much obliged.”

“Is that the name on your papers?” he asked glibly.

She raised an eyebrow but didn’t respond.

It was Agent Hayato who spoke next. “We recovered a film—made by the Man in the High Castle. We understand that you were attempting to acquire it. It features Agent Misaki.”

John sat back and regarded them. “How did you recover such a film?”

“I’m afraid,” Alexa stated carefully, “that Joe was mistaken for a subversive, for which you have our apologies. Our sources in the Neutral Zone reported him and he was apprehended—” 

“On the soil of the American Reich,” John guessed. “He is a citizen of this nation and an agent of the Greater Nazi Reich. I will be filing a formal complaint with your ambassador.”

The man nodded his head. “Such is your prerogative. However, we admit to no such wrong doing, only having Joe Blake in our possession. He has not been harmed. We are, of course, ready to release him to you, Obergruppenfuhrer Smith. We just wish to know how you wish for this to take place. Agent Misaki suggested that he is perhaps ‘undercover’ and that this should be maintained.”

“That is gracious,” John stated, clearly peeved though not showing it. “Take him in a nondescript car and drop him in an alley somewhere in Brooklyn. I would appreciate the return of the film.”

“It was clearly damaged,” Alexa told him immediately, “by the time it came into our possession. It seems that before it came into Joe’s hands, it was subjected to light during its initial exposure. The film is completely worthless.”

Looking down briefly, John then turned his gaze back to his guests. “I would still appreciate to view the film for myself.”

Alexa and the other agent exchanged a glance, as if they were making a decision.

“Very well,” the man stated. “We will deliver it within the next day. Expect our diplomatic pouch, Obergruppenfuhrer.”

The three regarded each other and then John stood, the two Japanese agents following suit. “If I may speak to Agent Misaki for a moment.”

“I do not think that is wise, John,” she responded smoothly. “Anything you wish to say to me can be said in front of my partner, Agent Hayato. He will keep my confidence if that is necessary.”

John nodded for a moment, slipping his hands in his pockets, affecting a casualness he did not necessarily feel. “Are you happy?”

“Very,” she responded. “I wish I were still in the Pacific States, of course, with my husband, but I appreciate the lack of assassination attempts. You must congratulate me.”

John looked at her, his brows furrowed. “Of course, Alexa. I never congratulated you on your marriage.” The words were like ash in his mouth, but he said them for the sake of diplomacy. He wanted to strangle the little yellow bastard by her side, but that would certainly create an international incident.

“No, John,” she responded. “Chief Inspector Kido and I are expecting a child. Isn’t that wonderful news?”

Her eyes held his, a challenge, then without even a bow, Alexa turned and left.

A question tilted in John’s mind. He wouldn’t even vocalize it. However, it was still there.

…

Of course, Juliana breathed out as soon as she left Nazi Headquarters. She rested her hand on her stomach. She was three months along and just beginning to show. Juliana was unable to wear her Japanese dresses anymore without giving it away to the discerning eye. She hoped that, when Takeshi visited, he would still find her beautiful.

…

An official request came from Nazi Headquarters. It seemed John Smith had changed his mind. It would be educational if someone from the Imperial Embassy spoke to not only Thomas’s class but to his school. 

The junior ambassador received the request, it seemed, or at least he was chosen to relay it to Juliana.

“You are in delicate health,” he carefully broached after relaying the message. “We have not suspended you from duties yet as we have a capable doctor in the building, and we know Japanese women are strong—and you are now Japanese.” This was surely the greatest compliment the junior ambassador could have given her. “If you choose to accept this invitation, you will be asked embarrassing questions about your life in the Pacific States.”

She nodded. “I know. About my position as Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido’s niece, perhaps.” Her blue eyes shone would her face.

“Just so,” he replied. “It is part of our culture. It is a part of our culture we do not wish to become known to the white man.”

“Then,” she answered, “it was a courtship. He was dating me for the purpose of marriage. His wife died before we met. Does that meet your approval? I can still speak of how the Resistance targeted me because I was the woman of the white man who chose to associate with the Chief Inspector of the kempeitai. How all of us who were of significance to powerful government officials were in danger. I could make it sound like families were involved although I don’t think I met a single Japanese family who was associated with the military.”

“Indeed,” the junior ambassador agreed. “You understand our position well.”

Pausing for several long moments, Juliana then asked quietly, “What should I say about my supposed engagement to Obergruppenfuhrer Smith? I cannot insult him.”

“Pretend it wasn’t you,” he answered succinctly. “You have always been the woman of Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. If the Obergruppenfuhrer could not respect that, then he deserves to be humiliated, and you are gracious not to do so.”

“When do I go?”

“Friday,” he told her. “Are you able to wear one of your dresses or is it not possible in your condition? I wish for you to be the epitome of the Japanese woman.”

Juliana blushed and looked down. She reached down and touched the bump in her stomach. “I can. It’s tight, but it’s possible.”

“I will send you with an aide, Agent Misaki. I expect you to represent the Japanese Empire with honor.”

She bowed to him. “Thank you, junior ambassador.”

…

Trudy was angry with her sister. She had talked about a ‘big romantic date’ and had asked for somewhere private where she could secret herself away so no one would notice her. Trudy had thought she meant that she didn’t want that Japanese guy to realize she was stepping out on him. So, of course, she thought of a speak easy where the Resistance occasionally met up. It would be the last place the kempeitai would expect her. She and—well, who would it be if it wasn’t Frank?—wouldn’t be disturbed there.

However, Alice had said Juliana had turned up with a Japanese gentleman in a suit and a hat. 

At least, according to Alice, it didn’t seem to go well. The Jap seemed stern, which was usual for those yellow bastards, but Juliana had been agitated and a waiter said he even thought she might have been trying not to cry.

Of course, Trudy had called Juliana and said they should get together immediately, but Juliana had put her off. Work, she said.

Then her mom had said something over dinner about Juliana being unwell. “Had to go to a Japanese doctor.” The white man never went to Japanese doctors. They couldn’t afford it. Trudy was honestly surprised that this kempeitai fellow cared enough about her to bring her to one.

Now, three weeks later, the two sisters were finally meeting. Trudy was waiting in a diner when Juliana eventually came in. It was Saturday, which was Juliana’s day off, so of course she was dressed like a slanted eyed midget. Still, she was a bit too thin and pale. Her hair was even dull.

“What happened to you?” Trudy asked in shock when she took in the dark circles under Juliana’s eyes.

Juliana waved her off. “Just the flu,” she argued. “I’m over the worst of it.”

“This is more than the flu,” Trudy argued. “Did you catch some sort of Jap disease? They must have different ones than we do—” She moved to touch her sister’s cheek, but Juliana just waved her away.

“Really,” Juliana argued. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine soon.”

Rebuffed, Trudy went back to her coffee. “Are we going to talk about your ‘big romantic date’ then? Which apparently wasn’t very romantic despite the fact that it was with that man?”

Throwing back her head, Juliana laughed. It was a tired, desperate laugh. 

The waiter came through and set down a cup in front of Juliana and poured her a cup of coffee. 

“That man,” Juliana stated cruelly, “helps pay for the food that you eat. You think it’s a coincidence that suddenly Mom can afford sugar and that you suddenly are given a new pair of white gloves when yours get a little too thin? Open up your eyes, Trudy. You can’t be that blind.” She took a sip of her coffee.

She stared at Juliana in shock. “You’re lying. Dad’s been picking up more shifts.”

“In the Nippon Building,” Juliana shot back. “I’ve seen him there.” Taking a deep breath, she centered herself and pushed her hair back. “Trudy, I love you. You’re my sister, but you’re just going to have to accept the fact that I’m with Takeshi-san. We’re a couple.”

“He’s Japanese!” Trudy practically shouted and the diner suddenly silenced and everyone turned to look at them.

Juliana sighed and set down her coffee. “I am very well aware of the fact he’s Japanese. However, you’ve had a year to get used to this situation, Trudy. I’m with the Chief Inspector.”

Trudy leaned forward and whispered dangerously, “He picks up Americans off the streets, interrogates them, tortures them, all in the name of the Japanese Empire! He has spies everywhere. He probably has one in this very diner.”

That didn’t seem to bother Juliana. “If he does, he’s listening to a very repetitive conversation considering how many times we’ve had it, Trudy. Me. Takeshi. Together. Get it?”

Grabbing her arm, Trudy hissed, “He picked up Frank again just last week.”

This, at least, seemed to catch Juliana’s attention. “Really? Well, I have no idea why. He doesn’t discuss work with me. I don’t expect him to.”

“Juliana—Frank—”

“Raped me,” Juliana hissed, and Trudy leaned back as if she were slapped. “The next day I threw myself in front of a bus and you and Mom just left me with that monster. I really couldn’t care less what happens to Frank. I hate the very sight of him. He makes me sick. Just listening to you talk about him makes me sick.”

“You don’t mean that,” Trudy insisted, grabbing Juliana’s arm, but her sister just wrenched away.

“Nice having this chat,” she admitted, taking out her wallet and enough money to cover both their coffees. “Have fun if this mysterious agent picks you up.” Juliana then swept out and, after looking both ways, crossed the street.

Trudy just watched her go. Clearly it hadn’t been a mistake when they had attempted to assassinate Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido with Juliana all those months ago in the tea shop. Perhaps another attempt was in order. It would take planning, but it was possible. Trudy had some people to talk to. Finishing her coffee, she got up and left, her eyes connecting with a man she knew was in the Resistance.

…

Juliana was waiting outside the principal’s office, sitting with her hands in her lap. She was dressed in her loosest Japanese dress in the Western style, a pale pink, her hair done elaborately on her head, a traditional robe of black velvet draped over her lap.

A man came out of an office, portly, and she stood.

He looked around and then turned to his secretary and whispered for several long moments. Then he turned and glanced at Juliana before turning back to the secretary.

“Forgive me—you were sent by the Imperial Embassy?” he asked as he looked at Juliana, taking her in. “You’re—Forgive me. You appear to be Aryan.”

“I am Aryan,” she responded as she stood, placing her cloak over one arm. “I am, however, a former citizen of the Japanese Pacific States and the wife of Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido of the kempeitai. I understood you wished your students to be educated in Japanese culture and the Pacific States in particular?”

The man looked startled. “Why—yes. When we were told to expect a,” he turned and picked up a piece of paper from his secretary’s desk, “Agent Misaki Kido, we were expecting a Japanese man.”

“You have an Aryan woman who has married into a Japanese Household,” she told him quite clearly. “I am sorry to be a disappointment. I understood it was my unique perspective that was what was particularly desirable.” Juliana paused and looked at the man for a moment. “If there has been a mistake—”

The principal’s eyes were now skimming down the sheet and his eyebrows rose in shock at something he read. “You have been recommended personally by Obergruppenfuhrer Smith!”

Juliana wondered why this man hadn’t done his research. “I’m very fond of Thomas, his son,” she said by way of answer. “He first asked me several months ago.—Thomas, that is.”

“Quite. Well. We’ve arranged for you to speak to a dozen of our most promising students, Thomas included.” He glanced down the list. “Yes, Thomas Smith will be there.” 

This man was clearly incompetent. 

Juliana was led to a classroom which was set up with about a dozen chairs in a circle. She placed her purse and cloak to the side, looking at the students and saw Thomas who waved. She smiled and nodded her head before she was introduced to a Mr. Mills.

“Students,” Mr. Mills stated, clapping his hands. “This is Agent Misaki Kido of the Japanese Empire. She is here to speak to you about the Pacific States where she was born and lived most of her life.”

Taking a breath, she stepped forward and looked around the students. “Well,” she began. “What is there to say? It’s certainly a lot cleaner here in the Greater Nazi Reich. When I first arrived here, I was so excited to see grass that I jumped from a moving car just to touch it!” Her eyes caught Thomas’s as everyone laughed, and he smiled at her as they shared the memory of all those months ago.

“So, there’s no grass?”

Juliana smiled. “No, there’s grass. It’s just in private parks where only the Japanese are allowed to go. There is certainly grass outside of the cities, but I lived in San Francisco and never left the city.”

“But you have a Japanese name?”

“My name—Misaki—is a nickname that was given to me by my husband shortly after we met. I was running late, and passed under a cherry tree and had cherry blossoms in my hair. Misaki means ‘cherry blossom.’ There is a great deal of tension between the Resistance and the government in the Pacific States and I was called a ‘race traitor’ for associating with my husband, and so I was often targeted. For that reason, I don’t use my actual name for fear of repercussions, even from the Resistance here in the American Reich.”

“You are a race traitor,” a boy with hair that was so blond it was almost white stated definitely. He was certainly a bully, Juliana decided.

“The Japanese are honorary Aryans,” she responded without missing a beat. “I would have been a true race traitor if I associated with a known Semite or Negro, both of which are fugitives in the Japanese Empire.”

This was going to be a long day.

Still, the questions kept on coming. They wanted to know about the food. About what women wore. Why she was wearing that particular dress and wasn’t dressed like an Aryan although she herself wasn’t Japanese.

Then came up the questions. “How do you know Thomas?” the bullying boy asked.

“My husband is acquainted with Obergruppenfuhrer Smith professionally. He has had occasion to travel to the American Reich in the past. I also live here and operate as an employee of the Imperial Embassy. I have visited Nazi Headquarters myself in a professional capacity.”

The boy wouldn’t stop. “Are you a spy? A real race traitor?”

She smiled at him kindly, but it took all she had as she was feeling a bout of morning sickness at that moment. “I’m afraid that I’m not a spy. I’m afraid I’d make a rather poor one.”

A girl piped up. “Do you know any spies?”

That certainly surprised Juliana. “I’m sure I do. However, as they’re spies, they’re not likely to tell me.”

“So, if you’re not a spy,” a girl with ponytails who had been rather quiet up to this point asked, “what do you do?”

“I help my Japanese partner understand the nuances of the language of the white man,” she explained, “which is what the Japanese call all people who are white, whether Aryan, Slavs, Scandinavians, Normans, white Hispanics, et cetera. I am in a singular position of being able to bridge both cultures.”

Thomas this time raised his hand and Juliana called on him. Surprisingly, he asked about her engagement ring. She supposed he’d been curious about it for a long time.

…

Akihito Kido was a boy of eight. 

He remembered clearly when his father first started sending his mother tokens of his affection in the form of cherry tea. For some reason, his mother stated that he was not to drink the tea. 

Akihito did not know why. An explanation was not given. However, his esteemed father had instructed that this was to be the way, and so it was the way. Every morning his mother would drink the tea.

The tea smelled refreshing but still Akihito did not drink it.

He did not make any connection between the tea and his mother’s illness. It was subtle at first. She seemed tired. Then she spent more time in bed. Then the vomiting started.

His esteemed father, in his concern, sent more tea—a different blend—in the hopes that it would soothe his wife’s illness. Still, Akihito’s mother’s condition only worsened. Akihito was confused. He was so worried he even called his esteemed father in San Francisco, but he must have had the wrong number. It said it belonged to ‘Juliana Crain’ but his father’s name was printed next to it in bold strokes.

“Hello?” a woman answered in English. “Smith Residence.”

“Juliana Crain?” he replied in stumbling English. “I—”

There was a pause, and then the woman on the other end of the phone switched to Japanese. “Is this better? How may I help you?”

“I am looking for my father. I have this telephone extension,” Akihito said desperately.

Again, there was a pause, and then the woman stated carefully, “That is peculiar. May I ask who your esteemed father is? Perhaps you have reversed the digits?”

Akihito looked down at the piece of paper and didn’t recognize the handwriting. It wasn’t his mother’s hand and not his esteemed father’s. Suddenly, he wondered why this number was in his mother’s file. “This number is in the Pacific States,” he stated carefully. “I think.”

“No,” she disagreed, and then there were muffled sounds in the background. “Who is your esteemed father? I used work for one of the government ministers in the Pacific States. Perhaps I can give him a message tomorrow and he can assign someone to find your father. Are you in the Japanese homeland?”

There was the sound of crackling on the end of the line and it seemed as if there was movement on the other end as well. Voices, muffled, echoed across the line, and then the woman spoke again:

“Is this Akihito Kido?” Her voice was kind but worried. “Please. Akihito-chan. Is that you?”

He hung up the telephone quickly and looked back toward his mother’s room.

The next day, his aunt came and took him away. He never saw his mother alive again.

Akihito remembered the name ‘Juliana Crain’ although the woman had never said she was, in fact, Juliana Crain. She had never said her name at all. 

His esteemed father did not return for the funeral. His duties would not allow him to. Akihito stood as the chief mourner and felt the loss of being parentless, an orphan in all but name.

He heard from his father again just a few months later to tell him that he had remarried and that his new mother was residing at the Imperial Embassy in New York City. She would not be returning to Japan until his father’s tour was complete. The letter was impersonal and offered little information. Akihito was confused. It did not even offer an address.

Still, Akihito sat down at his desk and pushed away his schoolwork. He took out a sheet of paper and addressed it to ‘Madam Takeshi Kido.’ It would be easy enough to find out the address of the embassy. 

The letter was just a simple question, apart from his signature:

Are you Juliana Crain?

**2018/10/05  
**


	12. Part the Twelfth

**Part the Twelfth—** _  
“I’m free as a bird when I’m flying in your cage // And I’m bleeding your love, and you’re swimming in my veins / You got me now ”_ **  
—“For You (Fifty Shades Freed)”, Liam Payne & Rita Ora**

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido disembarked from his flight with barely contained impatience. He had concocted a reason—or rather the junior ambassador had—for his presence in the American Reich. He wanted to desperately see his wife who was now carrying their child who would come to full term and be born with honor and with his name.

He knew there were children—born of mixed race—in the Pacific States—primarily just after the occupation. Children of rape and immediate desire. These children were anathema and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido would not permit any child of his to be branded. It had been a blessing when Juliana had lost their first child, although she had mourned and he had lit a candle for his lost child every day since. The second still haunted him. The third filled him with anger. 

The Aryan said “three’s the charm.” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido meant to prove them wrong. The fourth time would be the charm for him and Juliana. The fourth pregnancy would bear fruit.

He loved her. He loved the woman of the white man.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido remembered that day at the tea importer so well. Juliana had been standing at the counter, speaking Japanese with a slight accent, stopping occasionally as she searched for a word. Her voice was so lovely, so fluid. Although she often blushed at her mistakes, she did not try to slip into English to get her point across, but instead used her hands, approximated her words, and smiled when the proprietor spoke a little slower so that he might understand.

When the proprietor saw him, he bowed low and greeted him and Juliana had politely stepped aside, bowing as well, although she had remained silent. Her hair had fallen in front of her face, hiding her eyes which he had briefly caught a glimpse of, that startling blue of the Aryan woman, and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was entranced despite himself. He made the transaction quickly, not thinking anything of the fact that the tea he required was already waiting on the counter.

That night he could not get the beautiful young woman of the white man out of his head. He imagined what she would say if she spoke to him. What tea she might prefer. If her impeccable manners extended to the tea service. 

When there was a lull in his paperwork the next day, he picked up his hat and took a walk. It was an impulse and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido did not take to impulses. 

Still, he went back to the tea importer. “The woman,” he stated without any form of pleasantries, “the woman of the white man—the one who spoke Japanese.”

“Yes,” the man agreed. “I remember her well. She comes every week or so after her aikido classes.”

“This woman of the white man is a practitioner of our arts?” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido stated in surprise. 

“Indeed,” the proprietor replied, bowing. “I have seen her come in with one of her classmates, asking for his opinion. Her mother likes Japanese tea and sometimes Miss Crain likes to surprise her with a new blend or try one for herself.”

For some reason, the idea of a classmate assisting Miss Crain disquieted Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. He did not let this show upon his face, and instead he questioned, “What tea did she purchase yesterday?”

If Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was not adept at reading people, he would not have noticed that the proprietor was mildly uncomfortable at the question. “She was about to purchase the very tea you did. She informed me she would come back next week and inquire after it again. I understand it is her mother’s favorite.”

Without a second thought, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido produced his business card. “You will telephone me at this number as soon as you receive a shipment. Do you know Miss Crain’s address?”

The man bowed again. “No, Chief Inspector,” he responded regret. “I know that she is Miss Juliana Crain. I have seen her walking in this neighborhood. She is always polite and greets me even if she is with the white man.”

Shifting, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido nodded and then left.

A few days later he received the call. He went to the tea importer and purchased the tea. He had already discovered the apartment Miss Juliana Crain inhabited with a man named Frank Frink. He was a suspected subversive but from the short time that Miss Crain had been observed, it was clear that she did her best not to associate with the white man despite her living arrangements. He waited until he was informed that this Frank Frink was gone and then he approached her door and called on her, presenting her with the tea.

Juliana Crain was pleased. She was polite and elegant as she arranged the table in the small apartment, brewing the tea with the efficiency of a Japanese lady. 

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was enchanted despite himself. Her Aryan blue eyes fascinated him as they were unlike anything he had encountered in the Japanese Pacific States. He knew by the time he left that he desired to possess Juliana Crain.

When he learned she had left the apartment she shared with Frank Frink just an hour after his visit, suitcases and the roses Kido had given her in hand, he allowed himself to feel pleasure. Perhaps the feeling was mutual. However, he would not allow himself to hope. He had always been a man of honor. Now he doubted the need for that honor when he was so far from Japan, so far from his wife, so far from his son. He sat late into the night, reflecting on the matter.

Still, images of Juliana Crain in that tea shop ran through his mind, of her moving about her home where she sought to make him comfortable. The natural smile that crossed her face. He desired to make her smile again. 

It was a strange inclination, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido admitted to himself. He possessed it nonetheless. He would observe her at aikido, certainly. Then perhaps he would have enough information—more information, certainly. 

Now, all these years later, as he moved through the airport of the American Reich, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido found he could regret nothing. When he moved through customs, however, he was stopped.

“One moment please,” the undoubtedly Aryan official stated. She was pretty, certainly, but she did not catch Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido’s attention.

She picked up the telephone and spoke into it quickly. Then he was directed to a closed room with no windows. 

He didn’t have long to wait.

A Nazi officer soon joined him.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido stood. “I am traveling on a diplomatic visa,” he stated, “and I have business at the Imperial Embassy.”

“Yes,” the officer agreed, looking through his folder. “You wish to see Agent Misaki Kido—formerly Alexa Smith. Is that correct?”

“I am here to see the junior ambassador,” he corrected. That was his official reason for visiting. He had been invited for the Winter Festival—which he now had the pleasure of spending with Juliana and their unborn child.

The officer glanced up and then reviewed the folder again. “Your papers, Chief Inspector?”

They were immediately provided. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido knew they were all perfectly in order, signed by the junior ambassador himself. 

“How long are you staying?”

“Through the Winter Festival,” he told him succinctly. “I am the junior ambassador’s personal guest. We fought in the war together, you understand.”

“And you will see Agent Misaki Kido,” the officer pressed.

“I imagine,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido agreed. “She works at the embassy and she is my wife.”

“The Greater Nazi Reich does not recognize this marriage although we do not deny that Miss Alexa Smith’s citizenship has transferred to the Japanese Empire at large.” Green eyes that were sickly almost in their particular shade of the color stared into his. “You realize that she was under the protection of a powerful Nazi officer and did not have his permission to marry. We are choosing not to cause an international incident.”

“I placed her under Obergruppenfuhrer Smith’s protection,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido remarked. “I think I had prior claim over Agent Kido—and as she married of her own volition there could be no international incident. I could charge the Obergruppenfuhrer with murder as he gave my wife a controlled substance without her knowledge, which caused an abortion. Abortions are illegal in the Greater Nazi Reich, are they not, officer?”

The officer was obviously surprised and hid it poorly. “There are no witnesses,” he argued badly.

“I would have to refute your claim. I know of three apart from the Obergruppenfuhrer and my wife. Four, if you include the housekeeper.” There was the son, the friend, and the friend’s girlfriend, from what Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido understood. “Now,” he stated calmly, “I would like to proceed to my embassy.”

He picked up his suitcase and, without another word, left the room. He was not stopped again as he exited the airport and entered a waiting diplomatic car.

At first he believed he was alone, until he heard a treasured voice murmur, “Surprise.”

He looked to the left and saw Juliana. “Misa-chan,” he greeted. “You look in health.”

She smiled and looked down to her protruding stomach, which she lay her hand on. “Well, this little one seems to have settled down a bit. You can’t imagine how much I’m eating, Takeshi-san! He may only be five months along, but he certainly has made himself known.”

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked toward the front and saw that the driver’s eyes were glued to the road. Carefully, he reached over and lay his hand over his wife’s, wishing to feel his son. “Have you chosen a name?”

“Itsuki,” she whispered, “because I first realized I was with child when I was sitting under a tree in the gardens of the Embassy.”

“A name of honor of a son born of the house of Kido,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido responded. “I will write to Akihito immediately and write of the development in our house.”

She looked down at their joint hands and entwined their fingers. “He wrote me—your son,” she admitted. “I—never told you. Somehow he got the number of Obergruppenfuhrer Smith and called me when I was living there. I’m almost positive it was him. He was asking for me by—by my name back in the Pacific States and he was looking for his ‘esteemed father’.” She took a deep breath. “He never called back. But upon our marriage he wrote me a letter with one sentence—asking me if I was—her.” Her blue Aryan eyes sought his. “I was uncertain how to respond and I thought it was better not to put it in writing.”

“I would like to see the letter,” he told her, “and I will call him. He is with his aunt. At least I only have one year left of my tour and then I will see him again.”

Juliana nodded. “It seemed like he missed his father. His mother was—sick—when he called me.”

“You worry about Itsuki,” he told her plainly, the only emotion he allowed to show shining from his eyes. “I will deal with Akihito.” He pulled back and glanced back at the driver, who was looking at him through the mirror before he returned his attention to the road. “How is the junior ambassador?”

Immediately, Juliana seemed to understand the switch in conversation. “He is well. I see little of him as I am usually with my partner, Hayato Matuno, and we do not report directly to him.”

“You find your work rewarding, wife?” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido questioned.

She nodded. “Indeed. It is quite different from my duties with the Trade Minister, I admit. At first there was resistance to my presence because I am a woman of the white man, but I soon proved that I was both efficient and of use to the embassy.”

“That is well. Your mother and stepfather believe that you have escaped to the Neutral Zone.”

Looking out the window, Juliana nodded once. “Perhaps that is for the best. I wish they had not lost two daughters in such a short amount of time, but I suppose it was inevitable.” They were silent for a few moments before she spoke again. “Do you suppose it is strange, Takeshi-san, that my sister was a member of the Resistance and yet I am a race traitor?”

“I do not like it when you use that term,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido immediately responded. “You are a loyal subject of the Emperor.”

She smiled at him, her blue eyes shining with undoubted love. “You are right, of course, Takeshi-san. It is just difficult when one becomes used to the prejudice of others.”

“You are an honorable wife,” he affirmed. “Remember that, Misa-chan.”

They then arrived at the embassy and Juliana smiled at him. “Welcome home, Takeshi-san.”

In that moment he realized the truth of her words. Home was wherever Juliana was and no matter the fact that she would most likely have the barest of accommodations at the embassy, of which he was well acquainted from his previous visits to the American Reich, he was glad to be there.

…

“The Winter Festival?” Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith checked. “I suppose they’ll have their holidays.”

Erich swallowed and shifted. “The Chief Inspector accused you of murder, Obergruppenfuhrer.”

John Smith stilled. Unfortunately, he knew exactly what the man was talking about. “Alexa Smith,” he stated resolutely, “was not a citizen of the Japanese Empire at the time. She was a citizen of the American Reich and it was racial purification. That is what you will say if the matter ever comes up again, Erich. Do you understand me?” His eyes held the young man’s resolutely.

“Yes, Obergruppenfuhrer.” He stood to attention. “Sieg Hile!”

“Sieg Hile!” John Smith returned in distraction.

Damn that yellow monkey. This could cause problems diplomatically as Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was clearly the father and Alexa had never given consent.

…

Joe Blake had been ordered to the Fatherland, but had postponed his flight. He had kept in touch with Alexa even after she had married her Japanese lover and become a citizen of the Japanese Empire. They never met at the embassy, but occasionally the two would go to “their” diner and have strawberry milkshakes. 

Of course, Joe knew they were being watched. Although they never met on a clear schedule, Obergruppenfuhrer Smith was a possessive bastard and wouldn’t just give up Alexa, even if she were married. He wouldn’t approach her—not yet at least, but he would watch her.

In his nicest suit and with his suitcase in hand, he walked up to the embassy and approached a guard. “Ah, yes. I’m a friend of Alexa Smith—Agent Misaki Kido. Joe Blake. I was hoping she was free, I have a flight to catch to Germany.” He smiled winningly. “It’s rather sudden.”

The guard looked over him and asked for his papers, which he handed over. Looking them over, the guard then checked a list over and used a radio, barking in orders. He was then, surprisingly, allowed to pass. Alexa must have put him on the approved list of visitors.

When he entered the waiting room, he only had about ten minutes to wait.

Alexa was as beautiful ever but she was dressed in trousers and was clearly pregnant. “Alexa!” he greeted. “You look—wow!” He stood up and hugged her, probably surprising all the Japs around them. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Oh,” she replied, waving him off. “I didn’t want John to find out. I’m sorry about canceling our lunches, but you know how those Nazis talk among themselves. I knew it would get back to him and what with his ideas about ‘racial purity’, I just couldn’t risk it.”

“Well,” Joe stated, scratching his neck. “This probably doesn’t matter anymore, but my father has ordered me to the Fatherland and I thought that I couldn’t possibly go without the support of my best friend. I’m sure you have diplomatic status and—well—”

Alexa’s eyes lit up. “Lucky for you my husband left for the Pacific States just yesterday. I’ll put in the request and pack. I should find out within the hour. I’d love to go to Germany and frighten everyone with my Japanese name and ways.”

“Are you sure it’s all right?” he checked. “With the baby?”

She nodded. “Yes. Definitely. No, I’m a bit stir crazy since I can’t really leave the embassy because of John Smith. This is just what I need. Even if the news makes it back to him, they might be too terrified of me to do anything. Who is your father?”

Joe shrugged. “No one’s ever told me.”

“An adventure,” she replied as they walked through the halls and they came up to a clerk. Alexa spoke rapidly in Japanese and was given a form, which she filled out quickly in Japanese. 

It happened in a whirl. He was in a small apartment on one of the top floors. Alexa was packing more of the wide trousers and long shirts, cosmetics, a book. She made a quick phone call (“it’s about my cat,” she explained) and then a longer one (“my husband”). 

When they made it downstairs she received a large stack of papers, which she flipped through. “No rest for the weary. I have duties at the embassy there, but I’m there for you, Joe, every step of the way. Now, where are we staying?”

“I’ve been given a hotel room. I figured I’d convert it when we get there to two hotel rooms or one with two beds.” He shrugged. “I hope that’s all right.”

“Well,” she laughed as they made their way to a diplomatic car. “As long as you can stand a pregnant woman getting up to use the bathroom several times during the night. Whatever happened with Rita? After—well—after she called John that one time, you said you moved, but nothing about her.”

The car was already driving through the streets, undoubtedly headed to the airport.

“We’re done. I’m not even seeing Buddy, which is hard, but I couldn’t forgive her after what Obergruppenfuhrer Smith did to you. But—wow—you’re pregnant again. Your husband, he doesn’t waste any time.”

Alexa smiled, her dark red lips as enchanting as ever. “No,” she agreed. “He doesn’t. I would say he’s more virile than any white man I’ve ever come across, but I wouldn’t want to insult you, Joe.”

He smiled at her wryly. “So,” he said, changing the subject. “Agent Misaki Kido once we’re over there?”

She nodded. “I hope that won’t be a problem.”

“I’ll do my best not to slip up. When I first heard about you, Obergruppenfuhrer Smith called you ‘Misaki’ so I’ll just hold onto that memory.”

They then sat back and enjoyed the short ride. It was easy enough for Alexa to get a diplomatic ticket on the same flight and then they were off to the Fatherland. A car was waiting for them, though the driver was obviously surprised to see that Joe had brought a woman in clearly Oriental clothing with him. Joe argued with the hotel staff for several long minutes about the hotel room. Alexa waited patiently, clearly not understanding a word. The manager had to be called, and Joe explained that he had brought a dear friend, who was a diplomat from the Japanese Empire, and that they needed a suite. This resulted in a telephone call to the Reichsminister of all people before they were finally upgraded. Unfortunately, the Reichminister was informed that Alexa was pregnant. Joe just knew that would get back to Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith.

“This is heaven,” Alexa declared as she sank back onto her bed. “I’m sleeping on a mat in the embassy. The Japanese apparently sleep on mats. I miss my bed back in the Pacific States.”

Joe laughed as he stood over her and set her suitcase down. “Well, I’m glad the Reichsminister could oblige.”

“I’ll be sure to thank him when we meet him. When are we meeting him?”

Joe sighed. “Well, we were supposed to meet him this morning, but I delayed my flight so I could come see you at the embassy. Obergruppenfuhrer Smith was probably upset, but I frankly don’t care. What would I do without Agent Misaki Kido?”

“I know,” she moaned in obvious happiness. “This feels so good on my back. Do you know how much my back hurts and I’m only about five and a half months pregnant! Just imagine how much worse it’s going to get!”

Laughing, Joe began to walk out of the room. “I’m in the other room. We need to be ready by four this afternoon for our interview and it’s near ten in the morning now.”

“No rest for the wicked,” she quoted. “I’ll set my alarm and unpack later.”

“Great idea!” Joe shouted before going into his room and undoing his tie. Closing the door, he sat at the bed and put his face in his hands. He was wondering if this had been the best idea, after all. He was desperate for Alexa’s company. Joe loved her with a passion he couldn’t explain, but she was another man’s wife. She was carrying another man’s child. First, she had been the property of John Smith and now she was the property of some Jap. Would she never be free? “Snap out of it,” he told himself. Joe had to content himself with being her best friend and confidante. He only had about a year before she returned to Japan, and then he would have to content himself with letters and the occasional telephone call. Joe would have to go on with his life—without her—but for his short stay here, whether it was a day, a week, a month, he could at least pretend that she wanted to be with him. Joe was willing to delude himself, even for a short while.

…

Juliana had barely slept and was already awake when her alarm sounded. It was three thirty in the afternoon. It was nine thirty in the morning back in New York. She got up and stretched, rubbing her hands over her stomach, and breathed in deeply. Time to get ready for the day. 

It always took her a little while to get dressed. Her stomach always seemed to protrude over her trousers and it was difficult to get her shirt just right, with the sash running between her growing breasts and stomach. She tried to convince herself she was pretty as she brushed her hair and clipped it back before putting it up loosely in chopsticks before powdering her face. She applied liner and mascara and then her signature lip color. She was ready for her day.

When she exited the bathroom, Joe was waiting in a suit. 

His tie was a little off. 

Coming up to him, she centered it as she often did for Takeshi. However, with her husband, she suspected he did it on purpose so that she would show him the attention. He was far too precise to leave his clothes less than impeccable.

Joe took a deep breath and then looked her over. “You’re beautiful, Misaki.”

She smiled widely. “You remembered.”

“I’m trying,” he responded as they moved to the door. “Do you have your papers?”

Picking up her purse and then her cloak, she responded, “I wouldn’t dare go anywhere without them. Your father knows I’m coming?”

“If you’re not on the list, then I’m not going to make our appointment,” Joe growled. “He can check the plane manifest. He can check the hotel register. The manager called him about our rooms. He knows who you are.”

She inclined her head. “If you’re sure, Joe.” When the door was closed behind them, Juliana took his arm. “This should be interesting.”

“It could be worse.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “We could be in Japan meeting my stepson whose mother just died a few months ago.”

Joe looked at her in shock and Juliana only laughed.

**2018/10/05**


	13. Part the Thirteenth

**Part the Thirteenth—** _  
“So who’ve you been calling, ‘baby’? Nobody could take my place / When you’re looking at those strangers, hope to God you see my face”_ **  
—“Youngblood,” Five Seconds of Summer**

Reichsminister Martin Heusmann sat on his desk, leaning forward. “He caught a later flight,” he checked, “with a woman.”

“We have information on her,” his aide told him. He flipped through a few pages. “She is a citizen of the Greater Japanese Empire. Born in the Pacific States. She married the Chief Inspector of the kempeitai of the Pacific States less than three months after his wife’s death. It is rumored she was his mistress before that.”

The Reichsminister looked up. “He married his mistress?”

“Ja,” the aide responded. “She now works at the Imperial Embassy in New York as some sort of agent. She’s here on a diplomatic visa.”

“What does she have to do with my son?” His blue eyes flashed up.

The aide clearly did not know how to answer. “There are rumors she was involved with the family of Obergruppenfuhrer Smith. They have yet to be substantiated.”

This caught the Reichsminister’s attention. “What would he have to do with a Japanese?” he questioned, looking down and worrying his bottom lip. This certainly did not make sense.

“She is not Japanese, Reichsminister,” the aide told him. “Agent Misaki Kido is Aryan. Her heritage is undisputed.”

Reichsminister Heusmann looked up in undisguised shock. “My son brought an Aryan Japanese National with him?”

The aide produced a photograph and the Reichsminister looked over it. The woman was clearly beautiful with long dark hair but eyes so light they were undoubtedly Aryan. She was wearing a peculiar top and—was she pregnant? It was difficult to tell from the photograph. He supposed he would see her if she was traveling with his son. 

The telephone rang and he picked it up. He glanced at his aide. It appeared his son wanted to share a suite with this woman. The plot was thickening. “Is she pregnant?” he finally asked. Well, that answered that question. Perhaps, the child was completely Aryan. “I give you permission for the changes.” He hung up. Turning, he looked at his aide de camp. “This shall prove most interesting.”

…

This was most peculiar. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked through the files and it appeared that there had been a fire in the Neutral Zone. Something about films. He would have to investigate.

…

Alexa moved ahead of him and Joe leaned forward and smelled her hair. He loved the smell of her hair. It was some type of floral scent that he could never identify. It must be Japanese, he supposed, but he really couldn’t place it. 

She turned as they were about to enter the elevator and smiled at him. “Let’s see if I fit,” she joked as the doors opened. 

“You’re beautiful,” he told her honestly. “I don’t see how you can’t see it.”

“You sound like Takeshi,” she laughed. “He has never been so effusive in his compliments, although they are always spoken with the utmost seriousness.” She pulled her face into a line and nodded with mock seriousness herself before smiling. “I don’t know how the Japanese do it.”

The doors had already closed and there was a German mother and her child standing behind them.

Joe glanced over his shoulder. “I think,” he told her with a bit of teasing, “that they just haven’t met the Misaki charm.”

She turned to him with a wide smile. “That must be it,” she concluded. “I’m the cure!”

If only she knew how she would be the cure for his entire life—but she could never know.

Putting his hands in his pockets, Joe took a deep breath and followed her out of the elevator. At the door, he helped her into her cloak which was rather like a kimono and then he noticed her feet. She was wearing thick white socks in platform sandals.

“Misaki!” he exclaimed. “Your feet!”

“I know,” she sighed. “Isn’t it horrible? Try balancing while being pregnant.” She then walked out and he took a deep breath as he followed her.

There was a car waiting for them.

He and Alexa shared a long look before he helped her into the backseat. 

Joe looked back at her feet. “You were wearing German shoes yesterday,” he remarked.

“I know,” she told him. “But I’m now an attaché to the embassy. I have to wear these horrible things.”

“You’re an agent at the embassy in New York.” Joe was utterly baffled.

Alexa rolled her eyes. “There is a great difference between an attaché and an agent,” she told him. “We’re expected to be a little more formal. I am now a public figure when before I was working in the,” and now her voice deepened, “in the bowls of the embassy.” She smiled at him with her dark red lips. “Of course, I’m Aryan so I’m allowed more liberties.”

“Of course,” he replied, taking her hand and kissing the back of it. “As long as you’re my Alexa. You’re my dearest friend in the whole world. I hope you know that.”

She looked at him with a small smile. “Joe,” she whispered. “You know I’m leaving.”

“I know,” he agreed sadly. “But for now we have the Third Reich!” 

Laughing, Alexa’s face shone with happiness. Joe smiled at her in joy, the two friends enjoying their short trip. His hand still held hers, and if she noticed she didn’t say anything. They grasped onto one another, two strangers facing the unknown.

…

There were many films. Some of them were destroyed. Others were not.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was sitting in a dark room with a few other individuals and one was running. At first there were numbers flashing, backward to forward, to show that the film was about to start. 

The American flag flew back and forth and children were running in the streets. The film cut to a field of some sort, a park. Juliana was rushing through the trees and reached up to catch a petal of a dogwood tree. She smelled it and a smile came across her face. Then recognition crossed her face.

The film cut again.

A man, a white man, in a suit was sitting at a desk, speaking. His hands were folded, his face stern. Missiles flew through the air. War ships were sailing through the ocean and then the man was speaking again. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido could not hear him as there was no sound to the film.

Juliana was once again on the screen. She was rushing up to Takeshi who was sitting in the grass, wearing light trousers and a short sleeved button down shirt. He was wearing his usual spectacles. Gone was his hat, his suit, his uniform. Here he was a man at leisure. Surrounding him were four children, all younger than four. All of their children. The ones who were dead. The first to a bomb. The second to a doctor. The third to a Nazi pill. The fourth now was growing in her womb. 

His lips thinned as he tried to withhold his emotions as Juliana picked up the eldest and kissed him on the cheek before setting him down again. 

She settled down next to them and Akihito, a little older, came into the picture.

The scene ran off and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked down at his hands, which he realized were clenched into fists.

“Who is that woman? Those children?” General Hasumido asked harshly. 

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido knew the question was directed him.

He looked back up at the screen before facing the general. “That is Agent Kido, my wife. I suspect the children are the three we have lost and the one who is even now expected. One was assassinated by Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith while he was still in the womb. It is a great tragedy to the house of Kido.”

“Agent Kido,” the general repeated.

“She is stationed at the Embassy in New York City. I understand she was sent on a diplomatic mission to Berlin. I await her return to North America anxiously for the sake of her health.” He turned back to the screen. “The film is peculiar. How can our children come back to life?” The last was said mainly to himself. 

“It is subversive,” someone said, “made by the Man in the High Castle. The Fuhrer collects them.”

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido’s jaw set. “He shall not collect this one,” he stated harshly. “This regards the Pacific States. It suggests particulars of my life, gentlemen. It is a matter of national security.” Grinding his teeth, he requested, “I ask that it be destroyed.”

“It must be studied,” a scientist suggested. “How is the Chief Inspector and Agent Kido so accurately represented? Where is the place they are with the children?”

Despite not answering, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido knew the answer. It was Chicago. He had been there once on diplomatic business. Let them figure it out. As far as he knew, Juliana had never been there.

Somehow, he knew there would be an inquiry into Juliana after this. As there was a substantial file into his involvement with her, her family including her stepfather’s position with the kempeitai and her sister’s affiliation with the Resistance, he was not particularly anticipating the prospect.

He breathed out slowly and waited for the next film to begin. Hopefully it would involve neither himself nor Juliana.

He was unfortunately disappointed when Juliana’s face appeared.

…

Alexa looked up at the building and raised an eyebrow as she looked at Joe. “Your father works here?”

“He works here, it seems,” he answered with a laugh, reaching into his jacket pocket to take out his identification. “Ready, Misaki?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she agreed and they stepped into the building.

After a routine check of their credentials, they were directed to an upper floor and a rather spacious office. The man waiting for them had a rather strong resemblance to Joe, with blond hair and pale eyes. He wore a sharp suit with a red armband that portrayed the swastika. Personally, Joe hated the symbol. He thought it was too pretentious. At least he didn’t have to wear it since he was kicked out of Hitler Youth.

“Ah,” the man greeted with a distinctive German accent. “Welcome, Joseph. Who might this beautiful young lady be?”

Joe knew that he knew the answer. “This is Agent Misaki Kido of the Japanese Empire,” he introduced. “She’s my dearest friend.”

“My son,” the man mused, shaking Joe’s hand, “friends with a Japanese agent. I never would have thought you would be a natural diplomat. Welcome to the Fatherland, Madam Kido.” He bowed to her respectfully. “I am Reichsminister Martin Heusmann.”

“Reichsminister,” Alexa repeated, glancing at Joe. “I find myself in esteemed company. Should I leave you gentlemen alone to get to know each other a little better while I introduce myself at the embassy?”

“Thank you,” the Reichsminister immediately answered, while Joe reached out to touch Alexa’s arm while saying, “Of course not.”

She hesitated, looking between them. However, she didn’t move, fortunately respecting Joe’s wishes. After a moment, she nodded and turned before sitting down in a chair at the far end of the room.

For a long minute, Reichsminister Heusmann stared at her before turning his attention back to Joe.

The argument that ensued was unpleasant. Throughout it, Alexa just sat and watched Joe anxiously. Occasionally, he would see her turn to her hands, inspecting them as if to give them a semblance of privacy, but then something would grasp her attention and she would catch his eye and smile at him encouragingly.

“I would be most gratified if you—and Madam Kido—would be my guests at a small gathering I am having at my house tonight.”

Joe was immediately on guard. “Agent Kido grew up in the Pacific States. She doesn’t speak a word of German.”

“Hardly, Joe,” she interjected, her blue eyes teasing. “I can say ‘prost’ and ‘Sieg Hile’ among other things. I was under the personal protection of Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith for several months, if you remember. It is how we met.”

“He didn’t take particularly good care of you,” Joe argued back, remembering that night when Smith appeared at his door in full regalia to approach a sleeping Alexa, caressing her face with his gloved hand. That same hand killed her unborn child within the week. As much as Joe loved Alexa and wished that the child growing within her was his, he would never wish that pain on her.

She shrugged. “Perhaps not. Still, he introduced us, didn’t he?” Her lips thinned at some unpleasant thought. “And I know enough German to know when I’m being insulted.” Her eyes turned accusingly at Reichsminister Heusmann. 

Oh. So she had caught some of what was said in German when his father had been asking why she had a traitor’s name and who the father was of her unborn child.

“Misaki,” Joe stated, coming up to her, “I will do nothing to make you uncomfortable.”

“Joe,” she stated, taking his hands in hers. “I am here for you—and to get away from New York where I can’t step outside of the Embassy for fear of being recorded by our mutual friend or having my child killed within my womb. If you want to go, let’s go.” She shrugged her shoulders and then smiled. “Think, I can confuse everyone with my name or just speak Japanese and pretend not to understand a single person!”

That sounded like the kind of trick Alexa would play, Joe thought. She was slightly impish.

He leaned forward. “Do you have a dress?”

Alexa paused. “Ah—no.”

Joe turned to his father. “We need money for Agent Kido to buy an appropriate dress. We can’t have an attaché to the Imperial Embassy looking anything but the health of Japanese motherhood, now can we?”

Reichsminister Heusmann pursed his lips but opened his wallet and took out more marks than Joe had ever seen. 

After a boring few hours spent in a waiting room at the Imperial Embassy, Joe was finally released onto Berlin with Alexa at his side. He’d never really been shopping with a woman, let alone a pregnant woman. Alexa was overly critical, but she honed in on black as she claimed it was ‘slimming’ and discussed several dresses with a fashion consultant as they watched several models who were either pregnant or were very good at pretending to be pregnant walk and pose in front of them.

“Are you ready yet?” Joe teased after Alexa had been in the bathroom for a good thirty minutes.

He was already in his white suit jacket. He felt rather smart himself.

Alexa had come out of her room, wearing the dress without the fur stole, and had gone with a bag of what he assumed was cosmetics into the bathroom. “Perfection takes time!” she called. “You’re as bad as Takeshi! You’d think his first wife never spent any time preparing herself.”

“Perhaps Japanese women don’t,” he replied as he leaned next to the bathroom door, resting his head against the door.

“Well,” she stated, as she opened the door and appeared, a vision of loveliness with her hair clearly curled and then put up in an elaborate style, her eyes painted white and then with heavy mascara and liner. “Japanese women in the Pacific States do.”

The transformation was quite surprising. Even in her pregnancy clothes with her long hair down, Alexa looked Japanese. The Aryan version of Japanese, but Japanese nonetheless. Now he was looking at a decidedly Western woman, her bluer than blue eyes shocking in their brilliance.

“I think I’m in love,” he stated quite honestly.

Alexa laughed. “Don’t let my husband hear you!” She obviously thought it was a teasing compliment. He wasn’t going to undeceive her. “He might be jealous, although he would never tell you. He’d just bring you in for questioning and a bit of torture.”

Joe shivered at the thought. “I would appreciate it,” he murmured in a mock serious tone as he leaned toward her, “if we could keep this between us.”

“If you say so, Joseph.” She approximated a German accent for his name, which made him quirk a smile.

“Well, darling,” he drawled, “if you’re the one calling me that, I think I might just grow to like it. It’s so strange to hear the old man calling me by my full name.”

Hitting him with her purse after he helped her on with her cloak, “Joe, you’re particularly playful tonight.”

“Perhaps I’m in the party spirit?” he suggested.

“That must be it,” she decided. “Well, Joe Blake, be a gentleman and save me from all these Nazis.”

He opened their hotel door for her and she walked through it. 

“I might just go insane. After taking the ACT I know far too much about the Greater Nazi Reich.”

“Well, you must be particularly qualified for your position at the Imperial Embassy, Agent Kido,” he teased as they came up to the elevator and pushed the button, waiting for it to arrive. It took only a moment and there were a few gentlemen, both wearing swastika bands on their arms, already in it. “I seem to remember a particular gruesome interview with you and your partner.”

She tutted. “Joe, if you thought that was gruesome, you haven’t seen anything yet. I saw my sister Trudy shot dead before my eyes by the kempeitai. My husband actually ran past me holding one of the guns.”

Joe spun toward her and looked into her ice blue eyes. “Your husband assassinated your sister?”

“Is it an assassination when she’s a member of the Resistance? Besides, Trudy attempted to assassinate me twice,” she answered, her tone deadly serious. “Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.” She winked at him and walked out of the elevator.

Looking back at the two men who were clearly staring at Alexa, their mouths slightly open in shock, Joe simply said, “She’s with me,” before leaving. He caught up to Alexa and put his hand at the small of her back and she smiled at him as he guided her out of the hotel and to a waiting car.

It was not a small gathering. Joe looked around in wonder before he snagged two glasses of champagne for them. 

Alexa was immediately snagged by an official looking man, whose face blanched when she introduced herself as “Agent Kido,” and Joe smiled into his glass of champagne as he walked further into the party.

At one point, after being congratulated for his work in Canyon City, he was lurking when he caught a particularly hilarious conversation between Alexa and a young woman with wavy blonde hair.

“You are the perfection of the Aryan woman,” whoever the stranger was gushed. “May I?”

“Oh,” Alexa responded, clearly surprised. “No one’s really asked before. Of—Of course.”

The young woman reached out and put her hands on Alexa’s stomach and breathed out in happiness. “You are truly blessed. How far along are you?”

“Five and a half months,” she answered, rubbing her own hand along the stomach. “Or thereabouts. My husband and I are very excited.”

“Is he here? Your husband?”

Joe looked down into his champagne and when he glanced up, he saw Alexa look up at him with a sparkle in her eyes before she turned back to her companion. “Takeshi? No. He’s stationed with the Imperial Navy in San Francisco.”

The German woman’s face dropped and she removed her hands. “He’s—you’re—I---”

Willfully misunderstanding, Alexa held out her hand. “Forgive me, I’m Agent Misaki Kido. I’m an attaché with the Imperial Embassy. I’m here with Joe Blake. We’re visiting from New York.”

The young woman took her hand hesitantly. “Nicole Dormer.”

“Hello,” Alexa said again, taking a sip of her champagne. “How do you know Reichsminister Heusmann?”

Nicole was clearly uncomfortable and looked around. “He and my father know each other.”

“Oh,” she responded. “How lovely. I find family connections are always important. So—do you have children? Or are you hoping for children?”

“I—” Nicole swallowed and stepped forward. She spoke in a low voice so Joe had to take a few steps forward, abandoning his hiding space, so he could hear her. “Is your child—a—a Japanese?”

“Quite,” Alexa responded. “We’re naming him Itsuki. I’m certain he’s going to be a boy.”

“But—he’s—you’re Aryan.”

Alexa raised her eyebrows. She was clearly enjoying herself and the prejudice of Nicole Dormer if Joe could tell anything by her body language. She was playing with her. 

Joe decided it was time to step in. Moving forward, he wrapped his arm around her waist. “How are your feet, Misaki? The Chief Inspector would never forgive me if I let you tire yourself.”

“I’ll put in a good word,” she promised as she looked up at him with a smile. “Joe Blake—Nicole Dormer. Her father apparently knows yours. Joe is Reichsminister Heusmann’s son, although he grew up in New York.”

Not bothering to offer his hand to Nicole, Joe instead turned back to Alexa. “More champagne? How are you always glowing?”

“I’m Aryan,” she joked. “It’s a requirement, I’m told.”

Nicole interjected. “It’s the pregnancy. Aryan women glow when they have a child in their wombs.”

“Well,” Alexa declared, “fourth time’s the charm.”

Clearly confused, Nicole looked at Joe. “I don’t understand.”

Joe, however, was looking at Alexa. “I thought this was your second.” He remembered the child she was carrying when she came to him for help, but there were others? Were they with their father in the Pacific States? Surely they would stay with Alexa. They couldn’t possibly be in Japan either.

“No,” she responded, her voice a little sad. “Itsuki is the fourth.—Could you get me another glass of champagne, Joe? Nicole, do you need another?”

Deciding to lead Alexa toward the champagne and away from Nicole, he asked, “Itsuki? What does that mean?”

A sense of melancholy had fallen over Alexa. It was undoubtedly the thought of the child she had lost when she was in the Greater Nazi Reich. There was music playing and Joe approached the musicians and requested a polka.

He led Alexa to a space directly in front of the musicians and, when the music started, began to lead her in the steps. After a moment, she laughed and fell into step. “Joe!” she cried in happiness. “I’m far too pregnant for this.”

Not exactly answering her, he replied, “I knew that overpuffed bastard would have taught you the polka.”

She laughed as they turned. “Well, he did want to make me the perfect Aryan wife—and the perfect Aryan wife dances the polka!”

Joe smiled at her widely. He twirled her and let his hand drift over her stomach and she looked at him oddly for a moment before falling into step again. 

He couldn’t help but think how, despite her childhood and early adulthood in the Pacific States, Alexa would have made the perfect Aryan wife. If he had only known he was the son of Reichsminister Martin Heusman a year earlier, he could have swept Alexa off her feet, away from Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith, away from the yellow skinned Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido, and married her. They could have been in this exact moment, and the child in her belly could have been his.

All of this could have been different, if only his father had ordered him here earlier. 

But would he have gone back to New York?

Joe really didn’t know.

He couldn’t know.

There were endless possibilities and he was lost in this one, in love with a woman who viewed him as a friend, seeing her shackled to a man from a foreign empire and knowing she was in love with him and there was nothing Joe could do about it.

How he loved her. In every possibility of the worlds that stretched out, Joe knew that he would have always loved Alexa.

Alexa—the name of the cat. If only he knew her actual name—not Alexa, not Misaki—he would whisper it in his dreams. He knew he would dream of her tonight as he had the last and the one before that and the one before that. And he would dream of her the next and the one after that stretching into the future.

He would never love like this again.

And, in that moment as he danced the polka, his heart broke.

**2018/10/05  
**


	14. Part the Fourteenth

**Part the Fourteenth—** _  
“I found a love for me / O, darling, just dive right in and follow my lead”_ **  
—“Perfect Symphony,” Ed Sheeran & Andrea Bocelli**

John Smith watched his son pack his bag for South America. He was so excited for his diplomatic mission—and it was all fabricated. His heart broke a little. He wondered how Helen would have handled this. She wouldn’t have been able to let go of their son, he thought. In this dark moment of his soul, he wished that he had Alexa beside him, that her hand reached into his larger one and their fingers entwined.

He knew he would be able to tell her anything, even though she would perhaps never be able to tell him her name. John had trusted her that much even when she had broken his heart when she had gone to that hotel to be with Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. When he saw her with the smell of that yellow monkey still on her skin, he knew he could still trust her with his heart, because she hadn’t known that she possessed it yet. She hadn’t known that he loved her.

He had never told her.

John had never told himself. 

Perhaps he didn’t love her, not truly, not like he’d loved Helen.

This was different. This was a lust and a want, but it was also a trust. Her life was placed in his hands and he would have placed his in hers, not out of mutual respect but out of—mutual secrecy. Was that fair to either of them?

Perhaps not.

However, that is what they would have had.

And she would have been good for Thomas, for the short time she would have been his mother. She would have come up to him now, drawn him to her, kissed his head and wished him well. Then she would have gone back to John with tears in her eyes and would have pretended they were tears of joy.

“May I write to Alexa?” Thomas asked, bringing John out of his musings. “It’s only, I think she’d like to know about my mission. I instilled in her a true love of the Reich despite—everything.” He shrugged.

“Now,” John argued. “What did I say about bragging?”

“It won’t be bragging,” Thomas argued in his wonderful childlike innocence. “It is only that I want her to be proud of me. I know she was never my mother. But she is the closest I’ve had to a mother that I’ve had in a long time.”

John looked at his son sadly. “Of course, you can write to Alexa,” he replied sadly, meaning the words. “She has an official title now so I’ll get you the address.” It was Agent Misaki Kido. Of course, he knew it by heart. He knew her every movement. She was a defector. That’s what he told his staff. She was also his former fiancée, although even he could admit that she had never actually agreed. Alexa had already been engaged to the monkey. 

Still, John kept her engagement ring in the drawer in his bedside table. He never looked at it, but he knew it was there.

The latest photographs of her showed her heavily pregnant. He knew what they called women like her in the Pacific States: race traitors. She was a race traitor, and she not only warmed another man’s bed, she warmed a Japanese’s bed. The thought sickened him. Despite Thomas’s unparalleled abilities as a teacher, they had been unable to instill in her the proper Aryan pride.

John had failed her in that way. If he could have taught her that they were truly the Master Race, she would have left Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. He could not guarantee that she would have married him. For all he knew, she would have continued to seek Joe Blake out and married him instead—or someone else, hopefully of good standing in the Reich. However, she would have had Aryan pride. She would always have been his ward. He would always have had a piece of her.

Alexa was completely gone to him now.

He remembered when he danced the polka with her. She had immediately fallen into step with him without any coaching.

“How do you know this dance?” he asked in complete confusion.

“Shh,” she teased after a moment. “We don’t dance this in the Pacific States.”

He smiled at her, taking in her beautiful auburn-brown hair and blue eyes. “How do you know it, Alexa?” he wheedled. “Tell me.”

“It’s a secret.”

They continued to dance and then went back to their table and enjoyed white wine until she was smiling languidly and watching other couples. Finally, she leaned forward and whispered, “Trudy taught me.”

“Trudy?” he whispered, looking around in an exaggerated manner as if watching out for anyone who might be spying on them. 

She leaned back and giggled. “My sister. She was in the Resistance and she was apparently sweet on this—” her eyes looked up at the ceiling as she thought about it “—I think he was actually German. From the Fatherland German, German. You know what I mean, John?”

Terribly interested, he nodded. “Of course, Alexa.”

“Well,” she continued. “This German,” she exaggerated the word, “taught her the polka. Apparently, it was horribly romantic—at least according to Trudy. This was before I met—well—”

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. She meant Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. 

“So she taught me. She told me one day a handsome Resistance fighter would try to woo me with the polka and I better be ready. Of course, that has yet to happen and I hope it never does,” she assured him solemnly. 

John thrummed his fingers against the table. “Whatever happened to this—German?”

“Heinrich?” she asked, looking at him. “Well, he came around to dinner a few times, disappeared for nearly a year, came back, and then—well—” she shrugged.

He waited patiently.

“I informed.” Alexa wasn’t looking at him anymore. “I’m not proud of it, but I found him constructing a bomb in our house. What was I supposed to do?”

Immediately, John reached out and took her hand. “Alexa, you did the right thing.” His eyes caught hers and he tried to show his sincerity through her gaze. “You absolutely did the right thing. He was a terrorist. He could have killed you, your sister, your parents, anyone else living with you—”

She nodded and bit her lip. 

“Is that how you met—our mutual friend?”

Alexa shook her head. “No, we already knew each other. That’s how I slipped him the information. No one thought anything of us me going to that particular tea shop, on that particular day of the week, at that particular time. It was so simple. Heinrich sat down to dinner with us and then the kempeitai stormed the apartment during the meal and—well—I was left with Trudy crying on my shoulder. And it was all my fault.”

Of course, John offered his hand after that and danced the polka with Alexa, but her heart wasn’t in it. He walked her back to his car and she had fallen asleep on the ride home and he had carried her up to bed. Taking off her shoes, he left her in her dress and stockings. He pushed her hair behind her ear and leaned down and kissed her.

“Takeshi,” she breathed out in her sleep, and his heart sank.

Perhaps in that moment he should have realized he would never possess her heart. It would always belong to another man.

…

Juliana walked through the abandoned hospital behind Joe as the program of the Lebensborn was explained. It was absolutely horrifying. The idea of children born to progress the Master Race. She hated the fact that she was presumed Aryan in that moment. 

As Joe walked into a room and leaned against the remnants of a crib and broke down, Juliana rested a hand against his back, only to have him turn into her arms and start sobbing.

“Hush,” she whispered. “I’m here. I’m here for you.”

“Never leave me,” he begged-sobbed into her shoulder.

She brushed back his hair but held him close. “I can’t promise that, Joe. I’m so sorry, but I can’t promise that. You know I can’t.”

Still, he held onto her and cried and she comforted him as if he were a child. She turned her eyes to the door and saw Reichsminister Heusmann and she stared at him accusingly. He was not welcome here. This was a private moment for Joe and it should not be violated.

The Reichsminister nodded and left, going down the hall.

In the end, Joe and Juliana ended sitting next to the crib on the floor. Juliana’s legs were stretched out as she couldn’t really manage much else as she was pregnant. Joe had his knees bent and was hugging his legs to him, trying to get as small as possible, which Juliana imagined was difficult given how tall he was.

“What are you thinking?” she asked into the silence. “You can tell me anything, Joe. It’s just you and me.”

“I’m thinking I wish you were my wife.”

She smiled at him sadly, having suspected something of the sort since he kissed her. “Well, since that’s not a possibility, what else are you thinking?”

“I’m wishing that—I’m not sure what I’m wishing.”

Juliana nodded. “All right. That’s progress. I guess you no longer hate your father?”

After a long pause, Joe shook his head. “No, I don’t hate him.”

“Well,” she breathed. “We can get him to rebook our hotel suite if you want to stay here a few extra days to get to know him better. I’m not really doing anything at the Embassy, but I seem to bring some sort of status just by showing up pregnant. It turns out Takeshi is some sort of an Admiral. I had no idea! Imagine not telling me! No wonder he was allowed to have a niece!”

Joe looked at her oddly. 

“Right. Mistress. I was my husband’s mistress. We’re called ‘nieces’ because that’s how we’re snuck into buildings. We pretend to be relatives. Generals and Admirals are often older men while we nieces,” she gestured to herself fluidly, “are younger and prettier.”

“I hate to break it to you, Alexa, but you can’t pass for any Japanese general’s relative.” 

He began to laugh and it was clearly infectious because Alexa began to laugh, too. Soon they were in stitches, screeching ‘niece’ and ‘Japanese’ at the top of their lungs and it took them several minutes to realize that Reichsminister Heusmann was standing in the doorway, looking at them oddly.

Juliana had better luck controlling herself and she glanced at Joe. “I was one of two nieces who weren’t Japanese, Joe. And I was the first in San Francisco. No one thought it would be a problem when they came up with the deception.”

This caused another round of giggles and soon Juliana was lost again. 

Joe was the first to his feet. Helping her up, he exclaimed. “I’m just imagining it. You going up to some Japanese guard, declaring yourself the niece of—what’s his name?”

“Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido.”

Laughing for a few seconds and stifling the sound with the back of his hand, Joe looked up at his father. “I think we’d appreciate your hospitality until—until—” He looked at Juliana.

“It’s up to you, Joe. I’m here until my husband calls me back or the New York Embassy decides it needs me.”

Joe nodded and then turned to Reichsminister Heusmann. “For now.”

He looked carefully. “Joseph, I would be happy to have you in my home—you are my son.”

“Agent Kido is my dearest friend,” Joe interrupted harshly. “I’m not going anywhere without her. I trust her with my life. If you want to get to know me, then Misaki will be coming with me.”

Juliana was quite touched by his speech and touched his arm in appreciation. “Separate rooms,” she clarified. “When I spoke to the Chief Inspector he was quite put out that we had a Suite.”

“Who knew the Japanese could be possessive?” Joe quipped.

Looking at him, Juliana smiled. “You have never come across a Japanese man when he’s being possessive, Joe. The last time Takeshi was possessive, I understand, he had someone executed.”

“The Semite?”

“The Semite,” she agreed as she moved past the Reichsminister out into the hall. “Are you coming, boys?”

…

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido took the key out of his jacket pocket and unlocked the door. The building was in a good part of town, primarily Japanese, and the Chief Inspector knew many of them. It was why he had chosen it. He knew Juliana would be safe here.

“There is three thousand yen on the table,” he explained, “so you can begin to furnish the apartment to your specifications.”

Juliana stepped in behind him as he turned on the lights and she took in the living space. She breathed in when she saw the yellow walls, the small round table near the kitchenette. Quickly poking her head in, she opened the fridge where he knew there were several dishes he had had his housekeeper prepare for her so that she wouldn’t have to worry about it for a day or two.

She came out again and smiled. “You didn’t have to do that.”

He was uncertain if she meant the money or the meals, but he was gratified nonetheless. 

Next she turned toward the bedroom which had Japanese sliding doors. The room, he knew, was basic. It had a closet, a bed, a small side table, and a lamp. Again, he had his housekeeper make the bed for Juliana so she would not have to worry about it.

“Takeshi-san,” she breathed. “My very own room.” Turning, she smiled at him and she took her suitcase from his hand and placed it next to the closet. 

He followed her, pausing only to close the door and take off his hat. When she turned back around, she looked directly into his eyes.

“You are beautiful when your hair is down,” he commented.

Her brows furrowed, perhaps because her hair was in what the woman of the white man called a ponytail. After a moment, she reached back and took out her hair, swishing it from side to side. Her intense eyes looked directly into his and he took another step closer to her. 

Juliana didn’t move.

In an instant she was in his arms and he was kissing her, his hand in her glorious hair, his other arm pressing her against him. She breathed out against him, her hands winding around his neck and into his hair. “I’ve never done this before,” she whispered, and he paused, looking at her. “I mean,” she clarified. “I—I didn’t want it when it happened—I fought or I just lay there—do you want me to just lie there? Last time I didn’t—but now, that we, do you prefer—?” Her eyes were slightly fearful as she looked up at him.

His hand left her hair and he reached over to stroke her cheek. “Juliana,” he murmured, stressing the use of her name over his pet name for her. “I want you to be yourself.”

A tension he didn’t realize was in her frame eased out of her and she nodded. 

Cautiously, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido leaned forward and captured her lips again. He watched as her eyes slid shut and then he was holding her again.

She fell asleep in his arms, her hair tangled around her face. The Chief Inspector watched her sleep in wonder, tracing circles on her upper arm. He never quite knew that the act could be like that. He had been surprised when Juliana had asked him if he wanted her to lie still. It hadn’t occurred to him that there was any other way that she might act. The idea had excited him. 

Everything about Juliana excited him from the taste of her skin to the feel of her tongue against him to the slight sloppiness of their joining to the cries she muffled against the pillows that he hadn’t expected. He had been careful to use protection. She was now his but there could be no dishonor to his family and he would not bring dishonor to her. Juliana was too precious to him, and he would not discard her with a child when he returned to Japan at the end of his tour. 

As he continued to look at her as she slept, he wondered at this strange emotion that caused his chest to tighten at the thought of one day leaving her. It was too painful to even consider. No, he would not consider it. Not now, when he held her in his arms.

“Juliana,” he whispered, the sound barely audible, more the movement of lips than actual sound. He just wanted to be close to her, closer than he was now even though they were lying beside each other in her bed. 

She moved in her sleep and he leaned forward and kissed the corner of her mouth. 

Moving slightly in her sleep, her hand reached out and touched his bare chest. A moment later her eyes flew open and she looked about her until her eyes connected with his and, as if she had awakened from a nightmare she had been trying to repress, she calmed. “Takeshi-san.”

“Misa-chan,” he replied.

It was all the reply she needed as he leaned forward and he kissed her again and she accepted his embrace gladly. He reached for the bedside table where he knew a stack of condoms were, and she laughed a little as her hair folded over both of them. “Let me,” she whispered. “I’m sure I can figure it out.” Then she pushed him back against the pillows and tore open a package before sitting up, her lithe figure on full display, looking down and smiling.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido barely made it to work on time the next morning. He suspected the same of Juliana when he sat at his desk during a quiet moment and imagined when he next might lie in her arms.

…

The housekeeper definitely thought that Alexa was his mistress. Joe thought it was slightly funny if it wouldn’t cause an international incident. He was inspecting the many breakfast options when Alexa wandered in and took a deep breath.

“I don’t know what that smell is—but it’s amazing, and I hate Western cooking.”

“You hate Western cooking?” he asked as Hilda came in and started arranging everything. “However did you survive living at the Smiths’?”

“Perseverance,” she answered simply as she found a place to sit. Before she could pull out her chair, Joe did it for her, and Alexa smiled up at him. “I mean, I grew up on my mother’s cooking, but she’s rather obsessed with Japanese food despite the fact that my father was killed in the Pacific Theater.”

Joe thought that was odd and hummed, taking a seat himself and making sure that his tie didn’t get into the food. “That’s where your love of everything Japanese comes from. Now, what would you like?”

“Is there rice?” she asked, and Joe couldn’t help but laugh.

…

A second film was brought out and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido attempted to keep his calm. He did not wish to see whatever this showed. 

Unfortunately, however, his position required him to see all such propaganda pieces.

Once again the numbers regressed, skipping across the screen, five, four, three, two, that might have been a one. There was an explosion and San Francisco was gone. The sight was shocking. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido had no idea how such an image could possibly be fabricated but he had just seen it before his very eyes.

A moment later he was looking at some sort of transport vehicle. There was a young Aryan officer, handsome, riding at the end and rows of what seemed to be prisoners in the back. The officer had a rifle on his back. Clearly he was guarding them. There was a bump in the road and the prisoners swayed.

It was just for a second, but Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido saw Juliana. He watched in horror as his wife was transported through gates made of metal and barbed wire and into some sort of camp. 

The young officer jumped out of the vehicle along with another who had been sitting opposite him, and the prisoners disembarked. They formed a line, being pushed and shoved into it, before they were marched into a building.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido recognized the building—not the exact building, of course, but he had seen diagrams and photographs of such buildings. They were used to exterminate the Jews during the Second World War in Europe. It was part of the Aryan master plan to become overlords as the Master Race. 

Dispassionately, he watched as his wife was led forward and then left with dozens of other prisoners before she was gassed. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido saw his wife dead on the floor of the building before the officers came back in and started shooting the already dead bodies, poking them with their rifles to make sure they were dead. He looked into Juliana’s lifeless eyes and his heart clenched again.

In a moment of absent insanity, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido wondered where his unborn child was. Itsuki. Where was his child? Where was he himself? Why was he unable to protect his wife?

A horror washed over him as he saw that same young soldier and then the film ended and he thought he was going to be physically ill.

“What is this?” he whispered desperately. “Where is this Man in the High Castle?”

One of the generals peaked his fingers and looked at Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. “Have there been attempts on Agent Kido’s life?”

“Two,” he admitted as calmly as possible. “She is currently wanted by the Resistance for being a race traitor, killing a prominent Resistance operative who was also her sister, and for turning over one of these very films. She is currently posted, as was said, at the New York Imperial Embassy.”

“Can we verify her whereabouts?” This was asked by a younger man, possibly an operative.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido took a deep breath. “She is in Berlin. I understand she is the guest of Reichsminister Martin Heusmann and his son, Joe Blake.” His voice had an edge to it which belied his aggravation with the entire situation.

Finally, a man in the back finally spoke up. He was thin, with a straight face, and was in uniform. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido could not make out his rank, but he was undoubtedly a man of importance to be in the room. “I had reason to read the file on Agent Misaki Kido. She has done exemplary work in New York and is highly recommended by the junior ambassador. I can say with no hesitance that despite her Aryan descent, she is a true asset to the Empire. This is a clear threat. Agent Kido must be secured. Immediately.”

The generals and other officials began to speak rapidly among themselves. 

“She is a race traitor,” someone finally said.

“She purifies herself,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido sneered. “It is apparent. She speaks Japanese instead of English. At every opportunity she has proven herself a loyal subject of the Emperor.” He left out her attempted escape to the Neutral Zone and her defection to the Reich, although that had been necessary for her safety.

With that he stood and bowed low to the room. He would see the rest of the films later. He was discontented. Takeshi Kido wished to speak to his wife immediately despite the time difference. It would be better to have her extracted immediately from her current whereabouts. It would probably be frightening, but she would understand. 

He would never risk the life of his wife and he would not risk the life of his unborn child.

When he got back to his office he had his aide de camp give him a line directly to Berlin where he spoke with an attaché. “I am Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. Is my wife, Agent Kido, in the embassy?—No?—There has been a threat against her life. I require an immediate extraction. It is a matter of her life and the safety of the Empire.” His mind flitted to the bomb. “Call me when she is safely on Japanese soil.”

And he hung up.

**2018/10/05  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A new chapter of **Monster in Me** will be posted Saturday, barring the world ending.
> 
> I may be going on vacation next week, so if I do, there will be a slight hiatus. It doesn't mean I've forgotten you!


	15. Part the Fifteenth

**Part the Fifteenth—  
** _“I don’t wanna know, know, know, know / Who’s taking you home, home, home, home / I’m loving you so, so, so, so / The way I used to love you, no”  
_ **—“I Don’t Wanna Know,” Maroon 5  
**

There was a call from Berlin. Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith was not unused to them, of course, given his position. He immediately took the call and answered.

It was Reichsminister Martin Heusmann. He hadn’t quite expected the call since he had delivered Joe to his father, as promised, and had confirmation that he had arrived in Berlin.

“Is there a particular reason,” the Reichsminister asked, “that my son is enamored with a particular agent of the Imperial Empire—an agent who is Aryan but does everything to portray herself as Japanese? Whose child is she even carrying?”

Looking around the office, although he knew it was empty, John answered concisely, “I understand the child to be her husband’s. Why would you ask, Reichsminister?” John looked down at his desk and all the files he had to go through, determining that this day had certainly had a bad start.

The undoubted German accent replied. “Perhaps it is only that my son will go nowhere without her.”

“They are rather emotionally attached. Agent Kido celebrated her engagement with Joe and went to him at one point when she was distressed. He even asked for permission to court her before she was married. I was her guardian at the time, Reichsminister. I remember the conversation quite clearly.”

There was a long pause. “That is not in the file I requested.”

“Undoubtedly you have the redacted Japanese file on Agent Kido. All files concerning her defection to the American Reich were destroyed per our treaty with the Japanese Empire. There is only one copy left in existence, to my knowledge, and it is in my personal vault in my home.”

“Indeed,” (there was a long pause) “You will send it by diplomatic pouch.” 

“Of course, Reichsminister,” John answered. “If that is all?”

“Sieg Hile.” The Riechsminister didn’t even wait for a response. He just hung up and John Smith was left holding the receiver for a long moment before he hung up himself.

He would be expected to send out the file that very day. Leaving the room and grabbing his coat, he called for Erich. “I need to go back to Long Island on an important errand for Reichsminister Heusmann. Hold my calls for the day. I will return by the afternoon. If you would be good enough to call my car.” He then swept out of the entryway, back toward the elevator, annoyed at the situation.

Taking a deep breath, he let himself think about Alexa for a brief moment. He had imagined being trapped with her in this very elevator, of ignoring the camera and pushing her up against the wall before unbuttoning a little jacket she would surely be wearing with her suit as he sank to his knees, his hand slipping to the silk slip underneath. She would sigh and throw her head back, her mouth open as he dipped his hand beneath the waist of her skirt and then the elevator would start up again and he would fluidly stand. Alexa would quickly begin to button up her jacket, breathing heavily, trying to calm her excitement, forgetting that her hair was disheveled. He would lean to the side and run his fingers through the strands before the doors opened and they would walk out, the perfect American couple, his hand at the small of her back, as if nothing had happened.

And nothing would ever happen—because she was gone from him forever.

…

Something was happening. Juliana knew it. She and Joe had been sequestered at the Reichsminister’s house. The day before they had been taken on a tour of Berlin and now—now something was wrong. 

“I should go in,” Joe stated at lunch after throwing his napkin on the table. 

“If you think that’s best,” Juliana returned. “I can always go to the embassy, if Hilda doesn’t lock me out.”

Joe tried to hold in a laugh. “You really shouldn’t have babbled Japanese at her.”

“She thought I was your mistress!”

He tilted his head to the side. “Japanese, Alexa? Really?”

“Family honor is very important to Takeshi,” she stated back haughtily, but she knew that Joe was perfectly aware she was just playacting. “Besides, you thought it was funny at the time.”

“That,” he stated, pointing a finger at her, “is not the point.”

Sighing, she leaned her head back. “At least I am learning a bit of German, what with your father trying to get a few private words in with you when I’m sitting right here. He didn’t seem to take it to heart when I said I understood a few words.”

“Why do you think he’s using the most complicated words he can think of?” Joe asked, grinning. “Even I am having difficulty keeping up!”

“Of course you are,” she joked. “The great Joe Blake—or should I say ‘Joseph Heusmann’?”

“That’s it!” he stated, throwing up his hands. “I’m going to order Hilda to lock you out. Joseph Heusmann. You are quite mischievous when you want to be, Alexa.”

“Aren’t I just?” she asked. 

The sound of several cars pulling up startled Juliana, which she could make out even though she was at the back of the house. She turned to Joe who had also gone quiet. They waited while the doorbell rang and then it was slammed open. Immediately, Juliana pushed herself up onto her feet and Joe placed a hand around her as they moved into the gardens, looking for a place to hide.

Juliana desperately wondered what was happening when she heard decidedly Japanese voices. For a moment she was terrified—had something happened to Takeshi, and then she pulled away from Joe and shouted, “I’m out here!” in perfect Japanese.

A man in military regalia came out onto the back patio and Joe stepped in front of her.

“Agent Misaki Kido,” he greeted, bowing. “Your immediate extraction has been requested by Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido. Threats have been made against your life.”

Although she knew that Joe couldn’t understand a word that she was saying, she put a hand against his arm and walked up past him toward the man. She knew Hilda, who was pushed up against the doorway by another man, couldn’t understand or Joe who now had a gun pointed to her head—but still she whispered toward the man, “Who’s threatening me?”

“The Man in the High Castle.”

She looked at him in horror. “Let me get my bag.”

The man looked at her with cold Japanese eyes. “There is no time, race traitor.”

Laughing in his face, she argued, “There’s plenty of time. The Man in the High Castle is in the Neutral Zone. I haven’t heard of any Resistance movements in Berlin!” 

Walking past him, she moved as quickly as she could toward the stairs and then took a deep breath when she reached the top of them. It was easy enough to pack. Two sets of trousers, four shirts, her undergarments, cosmetics, perfume, her dress and stoll. She was done in less than five minutes. When she turned back toward the door she saw the man in uniform waiting for her, and he took the suitcase. “The bearer of a Japanese son should not have to carry her own suitcase.”

This was certainly surprising. She bowed to him low in respect and then moved back down the staircase. 

Joe and Hilda were in the entryway, sequestered by the three men who had come with the leader who barked out orders and handed off the suitcase. 

Juliana smiled at Joe. “I’m safe,” she promised him. “There have just been threats back in the Pacific States. They’re not being taken lightly.”

He made to move toward her, but a gun was pressed against his chest and he moved back. “You’ll call?”

“If I can,” she promised. “Good luck with your father, Joe. Hopefully I’ll see you back in New York.” 

Then she turned and left the expansive house and got into a military jeep, her cloak wrapped around her. Breathing out as she looked back, she saw Joe at the window and she lifted up her hand in farewell.

“Aryans are not the best of company for a Japanese wife,” the squadron leader stated firmly.

“Joe’s a dear friend,” she responded. “Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido knew I was here.”

“An error in judgment, surely.”

Refraining from shrugging, she instead looked at the man. “I’m sorry you’re so far from home. I know what’s that like. First I was in New York and now I’m here. Soon I’ll be in Japan. I may never see San Francisco again.”

The man turned to her and his gaze had turned soft. “Japan is truly beautiful.”

She smiled at him. “I hope so,” she agreed. “This one,” she stated, caressing her stomach, “will grow up there, and I would like him to have a beautiful home. A safe home. One without the Resistance. Without the distinction of race traitors and the white man. A world like that.”

“A world like that,” her escort told her plainly, “does not exist.”

…

This film was peculiar, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido thought. They were once again viewing them. There were so many to get through, and all of them possessed Juliana.

If there had been any doubt in the generals’ minds, they now knew that they must be propaganda and that Agent Kido could not have been involved in all of them. Sometimes her hair was different, sometimes she possessed scars that simple cosmetics could not create. Often the films showed that first soldier who was escorting her to her death in the death chamber. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido did not know who he was, but he would find out. No doubt he was a citizen of the Greater Nazi Reich, so it would take time. But Takeshi Kido had time. He had plenty of it.

Juliana was standing at a podium next to the man who had been in the original film that she had tried to smuggle to the Neutral Zone. She was in a beautiful white dress, eyelet, he thought it was called, with little sleeves that showed her beautiful arms. He could run his hands up those arms, even now, and lean down and kiss her, but this was only an image of her. Her hair was cut short. A medal was being pinned to her dress and she was smiling.

A moment later she was holding a child that was clearly of Japanese descent. A man Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido did not recognize, wearing a polo shirt and khaki shorts came into the picture and took the child’s hand and waved it about. Juliana smiled at him before placing a kiss on his lips.

The sight undoubtedly disturbed Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido.

Juliana’s hair was once again long and flowing, but placed in a braid over one shoulder. 

A moment later and the film cut again and there was a parade with flags waving. Hundreds if not thousands of people lined the streets and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido looked at the spectacle in obvious confusion.

Then Juliana was back with the child, the man gone. A figure appeared, only the back of his head appearing. The figure took the child into his arms and Juliana smiled. Juliana waved and skipped down the steps, it seemed she had been standing at the top of them, and then the man turned.

Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido stared in shock. There, standing in a suit with a lapel button of the American flag pressed to his chest, was Trade Minister Tagomi. 

The film wavered and then it was over.

A sense of dread filled Takeshi Kido’s stomach. He could hear the other generals murmur around him and he just took a deep breath and wished that he could fly to Berlin this very moment so he could be with Juliana, so he could run his hand up and down her stomach and reassure himself that the child growing inside it was his.

…

Walking down a street in New York was a man. He was a member of the Resistance. He was seemingly unimportant except that he was a former member of the U.S. Military, the best friend of Lieutenant Crain, and the father of Trudy Walker.

He worked in electrical wires and had caught, on tape, a young boy—Thomas Smith—speaking to Alexa Smith about how he knew he was sick but his father wasn’t telling him the truth. It was a strange conversation. A hurried one. A quiet one. But Alexa—this young woman who appeared to be a sister and a mother at the same time—seemed to be just as confused as Thomas was.

Well, he’d be turning it over to the authorities. Obergruppenfuhrer Smith was finished. One more piece of the puzzle was about to be removed. This was a win for the Resistance.

…

Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith had a name. Heusmann. It was all he needed. It was imperative that he get to Berlin. However, then the gestapo came to his door and took Thomas away. And he was arrested.

The file he had prepared on the conspiracy, which he intended to show Himmler was left on his desk, to be read several weeks later by some other government official when it was too late.

…

Joe stood was wearing a band with the swastika on it, red like the blood of all the innocents who would die, around his arm. It had been two days since Alexa had been taken and he had no word. Now his father was planning on blowing San Francisco off the map.

He couldn’t even think about it. Joe knew San Francisco was her home—that the phantom husband he had never seen lived there. Tak something. Kido. Right. Alexa was now Agent Kido. It would have to be enough.

Whatever happened, he couldn’t allow Alexa’s husband to die, the father of her child. The Japanese might be yellow skinned monkeys, but Joe loved Alexa and he wouldn’t be able to see her in pain.

When the Reichsminister was called away, Joe picked up the telephone. “This is Joe Blake,” he stated firmly. “I need an outside line to the Pacific States.”

“Of course, Herr Blake,” the voice answered smoothly and he was transferred to—wait. 

He looked up and saw his father standing over him with his hand pressing down to end the call. He tutted. “The Pacific States, Joseph? Who could you possibly know there? Who would you want to warn?”

The Reichsminister took the receiver and put it down.

“Joseph, I am surprised at you.” He went to the door and barked out orders in German. Immediately two stormtroopers came in and Joe knew it was over. Without any hesitation he went over to his father and looked into his eyes. “I would do anything for the woman I love,” he stated clearly. “Perhaps that’s what makes us different, Father.” Then he walked out, knowing he’d be under house arrest if he were lucky, or in a cell if he weren’t.

…

There was no warning but a whining sound. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was looking out the window when he heard it and he recognized it. He didn’t know how, but it was as if he had heard it before. Closing his eyes, he thought of Juliana. It was as if he could see her face, looking back at him, smiling. She reached out her hand for his, so unlike her, and he found himself reaching back.

Pause. Movement. He was no longer in his office and there was no longer that whining sound. He was in a park he recognized here in San Francisco. His hand rested in Juliana’s and she smiled at it. “What is it, Takeshi-san?” she asked as they stood under the cherry blossom tree. “Are you well?”

For a moment, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido wasn’t quite certain how to answer. “Yes,” he finally replied. “I am quite well.”

“The children are waiting,” she told him as she pulled him forward. “Akihito, Itsuki, and the others—come.” And he found himself being pulled forward toward a picnic basket where there were four small children, all beautiful and wearing Western clothing, and Akihito several years older than Takeshi Kido remembered him, sitting a little ways away from them. 

For a moment he thought he was in the film that he had seen.

Juliana was laughing at something one of the children had said and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido wondered what all their names were. He was passed a Tupperware container which, it turned out, contained rice, and then chopsticks and, after a moment, he helped the younger children with their own rice with spoons. He didn’t smile. Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido rarely smiled, and Juliana looked at him worriedly.

Still, he breathed out in contentment when a little girl wandered over and sat in his lap. It was so unlike strict Japanese behavior, but she clapped her hands and begged, “Daddy.”

Uncertain what to do, he looked at Juliana.

His wife laughed, the same wedding band he had placed on her hand back in New York on her finger. “She wants you to pick her up, Takeshi-san. Are you sure you are feeling okay?”

“Quite well, Misa-chan,” he assured her, and she looked at him a little oddly.

After a moment, he picked up the three-year-old as if she were an infant and she hugged him close. She laid a kiss on his cheek and whispered, “I love you, Daddy.” Tears filled his eyes at the thought that this girl had been lost—was lost although somehow he was holding her—and he admitted, “I love you, little one.”

“Aiko-chan,” Juliana called and the little girl looked up. “Eat your rice. Makoto will eat it if you don’t.”

A boy, the oldest of the four, looked up when his name was mentioned. He had slightly puffy cheeks but held an undoubted resemblance to Takeshi Kido.

“Akihito,” Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido stated, turning to his eldest son who had removed himself from them, “come join your brothers and sisters.” His voice was uncompromising and the sun shone off his spectacles, hiding his eyes.

The boy looked up from his rice and appraised his father for a long moment. “I do not care to associate with race traitors.”

“You will not speak to your father in such a way, Akihito,” Juliana admonished and Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido was surprised to realize that the term was used to refer to him. Race traitor. He was the one who was considered a race traitor. “Or your siblings.”

Carefully, he put his rice down and walked off further into the park.

Juliana sighed. “He knows his way home.”

“It is not safe,” Takeshi Kido worried despite himself, looking down at his other children.

“Perhaps not,” Juliana agreed. “But if we don’t let him walk it off, he’ll throw another tantrum and scare Itsuki and Yoshi. It’s unfair to them. He’s made it home all right before.” She reached out to Takeshi Kido. “Please don’t worry.”

He let his fingers entwine with hers, sensing that here, in this place, he was allowed to show his affection for her. “You are wise, wife.”

“I like to think so,” she agreed with a smile, turning back to her rice. “Now, let’s enjoy our day. We have four little munchkins, some of whom need to learn how to use chopsticks.”

Suddenly the two younger ones—Yoshi and Itsuki, Chief Inspector Takeshi Kido thought they had been called—clambered up, calling out to their mother. She threw back her head and laughed happily, and Takeshi Kido basked in her happiness. Yes, he would stay in this dream for as long as he could, no matter how strange it was.

Yes, he would stay here with Juliana and the children.

He wouldn’t leave by choice.

…

Takeshi was dead and the world was at war. Juliana and Joe were held up in a dark apartment in Dresden, where Joe worked manual labor to support them. 

Today, though, he had stayed home. Juliana was screaming as she was giving birth to her first child. They didn’t know how they were going to hide that the child was Japanese, but Joe promised they would deal with that particular problem later. “Later,” he always said distractedly. That had always been his answer until he had somehow threatened someone into getting her papers that said her name was ‘Alexa Blake’ and she was a Nazi citizen.

Juliana suspected that he had gone to his father. She still wasn’t sure if she was supposed to be his wife or his sister—they had never discussed it—but really, this was not the time or place.

“I can see it! I can see the head!” Joe called out happily as he looked between the legs, and wasn’t Juliana just embarrassed? This was absolutely humiliating, but right now she was screaming and pushing. “That’s right, Alexa. Just keep going. This little guy is coming.”

Part of her brain that hadn’t completely shut off wondered how they were supposed to register the birth if the child was Japanese.

“It’s coming!” Joe called, a smile on his face. “It’s coming!”

With one last groan, she pushed and collapsed back onto the mattress that she and Joe shared. There really wasn’t much room for anything more than that in the room. They had the one room and the kitchenette. They had to eat standing up or on the bed, which was rather funny if it weren’t so depressing.

She breathed out and then there was a cry. Joe was silent and just staring at the baby.

“Alexa—” he whispered, but she couldn’t even open her eyes.

“Alexa—”

“What?” she whispered. “Is he a girl? Do I need a new name?”

“No,” he answered carefully, putting the baby down into the waiting blankets and, well, there was a snip so he must have been cutting the cord. They had done a bit of research on how to do this since they couldn’t afford a midwife and they knew the baby could come at any time. “This baby’s Aryan.”

Her eyes flew open and she pushed herself up on her hands, looking over at the baby, and Joe passed him to her. He was covered in blood, but she could make out two startling blue eyes and blacker than black hair.

“It wasn’t a dream,” she whispered in desperation. “I—I thought it was a dream.”

Joe came up and looked at her. “What wasn’t a dream?”

“The nightmare. The night I told John I was married to Takeshi, Rose brought up a tray with wine, and the wine made me drowsy, and I dreamt that John came into the room—and—” She looked up with tears in her eyes. “I—I thought it was a nightmare. I woke up fine the next morning. It was a dream, wasn’t it?”

Looking lost for words, Joe pulled her toward him as she silently began to cry. The baby began to wail and he whispered, “Hey, the little guy needs to eat. Are you up for that, Alexa?”

“Oh,” she sighed, sniffling. “Yeah.”

“Hey,” he murmured, taking her face in between her hands. “We’ll go and get married—” (she made to object but he kept going as he stroked her hair away from her face) “—I love you. I’m in love with you and I know you care for me. This little guy needs a dad. We’ll tell my father that he’s mine and he’s going to have everything the Reich can give him. Okay? I’ll keep you safe.”

He pulled her to him again but when the child continued to wail, she pulled away and began to pull at her shirt until her breast was revealed and she began to try to suckle the child. 

Joe looked away out of politeness and Juliana sighed, thinking about it. “You’ll leave me alone?” she asked quietly, knowing she was being partially unfair. “Until I’m ready? Frank forced me in San Francisco—and now it seems John forced me in New York—I don’t want—”

Turning back to her although she was still breast feeding, Joe promised, “I’ll never force you, Alexa.” He reached for her again and brushed away an errant tear. “I would never do that. I would hope I’m a better man than that.”

“Well, I guess I’m Alexa after my cat for the rest of my days. My cat!”

He frowned. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Juliana grimaced and looked back down at the baby. “I guess he needs a name. Do you have any ideas? Something German maybe although we’re both American?”

He looked at him for a long moment. “Julian.” It was pronounced Yoo-lyan, but it was undoubtedly her name. Juliana couldn’t help but laugh at it.

“It’s perfect,” she declared. “Julian Blake—Julian Heusmann perhaps.”

Joe leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “Yes,” he agreed. “It’s perfect.”

…

No longer Obergruppenfuhrer John Smith was in a cell. He had been tortured, humiliated, and he knew that by now his son Thomas was dead. However, he thought with a slight smile, he might have a son or a daughter in the world. He knew he couldn’t be certain, of course he couldn’t be certain. That yellow monkey had gotten there first.

However, he had had that night with Alexa. He wasn’t proud that he had had to drug her, but he had held her in his arms, had forced her to submit to his will even if for just a few hours. He kept those memories in a place where they would be safe.

Yes, perhaps he had another son somewhere in the world.

John couldn’t be certain.

But perhaps.

**THE END.  
**

**  
2018/10/06**


End file.
